On April 21, horse racing at Laurel Park was suspended, a day after two horses died in back-to-back races. This mini crisis in Maryland Racing has since been resolved, and now all eyes expectantly turn to the second leg of the “Triple Crown,” the Preakness Stakes to be held May 20 at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course. But seemingly lost amid all the initial finger pointing between the owner of Laurel and Pimlico, and the horsemen who race there was this: The killing that prompted the shutdown was, and will ever be, business as usual.

Since our start in 2014, Horseracing Wrongs has confirmed (through public information act requests to the Maryland Racing Commission) 354 deaths at Maryland racetracks. Together, Laurel and Pimlico, the state’s two primary venues, average 35 kills per year. At the time of the track’s closing, 13 horses had already lost their lives at Laurel in 2023.

 But that’s just Maryland. Our research indicates that over 2,000 horses die at U.S. tracks every year, about six per day. Cardiac arrest, pulmonary hemorrhage, blunt-force head trauma, broken necks, severed spines, ruptured ligaments, shattered legs. We have documented with names, dates, locations and details nearly 10,000 dead “athletes” on our website, horseracingwrongs.org.

And when not dying at the track, they’re dying at the abattoir: Two independent studies (as well as industry admissions) reveal that many thousands of spent or simply no-longer-wanted racehorses are bled-out and butchered annually, the whimsical names and cheering crowds a bitter lifetime ago.

 But it’s not just the killing. There is, too, the everyday cruelty. First, would-be racehorses are usually sold (by their breeders) into the system at the tender age of 1, when they’re mere babies. Now under the yoke of their first trainer, the grinding begins almost immediately. While a horse does not reach full musculoskeletal maturity until the age of 6, the typical racehorse is thrust into intensive training at 18 months, and raced at 2, the rough equivalent of a first-grader. In the necropsies, we see time and again 4-, 3-, even 2-year-old horses dying with chronic conditions like osteoarthritis and degenerative joint disease — clear evidence of the incessant pounding these pubescent/adolescent bodies are forced to absorb.

When not out on the track training or racing, the horses generally are kept locked, alone, in tiny 12-by-12 foot stalls for over 23 hours a day, making a mockery of the industry claim that “horses are born to run,” and a cruelty all the worse for being inflicted on innately social animals like horses. Prominent equine veterinarian Kraig Kulikowski, who practices in upstate and western New York, likens this to keeping a child locked in a 4-by-4 foot closet for over 23 hours a day. Imagine that. Relatedly, practically all the horse’s natural instincts and desires are thwarted, creating an emotional and mental suffering that is brought home with crystal clarity in the stereotypies commonly seen in confined racehorses: cribbing, wind-sucking, bobbing, weaving, pacing, kicking, even self-mutilation.

What’s more, the racing people thoroughly control every moment of their horses’ lives — control that is often implemented through, among other means, nose chains, lip chains, tongue ties, eye blinders and mouth “bits.” The bits in particular, says Robert Cook, a veterinarian and Professor of Surgery Emeritus at Tufts University, make the horses feel like they’re suffocating when being forced to run at breakneck speeds. And the very public flogging via whip administered to racehorses would land a person in jail if done to his dog in the park, but at the track, it’s just part of the tradition.

Finally, there is the commodification. By law, racehorses are literal chattel — pieces of property to be bought, sold, traded and dumped, whenever and however their people decide. In fact, the average racehorse will change hands multiple times over the course of his so-called career, adding anxiety and stress to an already anxious, stressful existence (some 90% of active race horses suffer from ulcers).

Truth is, there is not a whit of difference between dog racing and horse racing in regard to how the animals are treated. In fact, one could argue that horse racing is worse because of slaughter. But while one form is all but done with in America — there are currently only two dog tracks left in the entire country and dog racing is outright prohibited on moral grounds in 42 states — the other continues along merrily under the banner of “sport.” It is high time we right this wrong. Horse racing is animal cruelty. Horse racing is animal killing. Horse racing must end.

Patrick Battuello (patrickjbattuello@gmail.com) is the founder and president of Horseracing Wrongs, an anti horse racing advocacy organization based in Albany, New York.