How the Business Part of Horse Racing Impacts Animal Welfare

Source: Absolute Charm / Pexels

Every year, hundreds of racehorses break one of the myriad bones in their lower legs while training or competing in races, meaning that they must be euthanized. Although it’s a relatively tiny fraction every year—in 2024, 99.91 percent of starts did not result in a fatality—those deaths have drawn the scrutiny and outrage of ordinary Americans, who see these animals as magnificent sentient and sensitive beings. It has sparked a debate over whether the sport has outlived its time, as The Washington Post editorial board argued after a major doping scandal in 2020.

When I learned about CNN reporter Katie Bo Lillis' new book Death of a Racehorse: An American Story, I couldn't wait to read it. Lillis is not a crusader, but instead takes a journalist’s eye to a troubled sport and forensically documents the root of its problems—and offers a hopeful path forward for both the animal and the people who make their living working with them.

Marc Bekoff: Why did you write Death of a Racehorse?

Katie Bo Lillis: I spent the formative years of my life working in the sport of thoroughbred horse racing. I came to love not just the animal, but the people who devote their lives to working with them. When, in 2020 and 2021, there were a series of enormous scandals in racing—a massive FBI doping bust and the disqualification of the winner of the Kentucky Derby—I realized that there was so much about this sport that people didn’t understand and that I thought I was uniquely qualified to explain. Racing has its problems—problems that needed fixing—but it isn’t a sport populated with cruel, greedy horsemen who are callous to the health and safety of the animal.

I thought telling the true story of racing, and the incentive structures that govern it and occasionally endanger its equine athletes—could tell us a bigger story about society’s relationship to working animals in the modern era. What do we owe animals who provide us with something vital—a way of making a living—and what do they owe us?³

MB: Who do you hope to reach?

KBL: I wrote this book for people who don’t have any familiarity with horse racing—who perhaps watch the Kentucky Derby every year, but that’s it. I wanted to do my little part to bridge the urban-rural divide, the gap of understanding between people who make their living with animals every day and the rest of us, who don’t. I wanted to talk to “the rest of us.” At the same time, it was very important to me that this book be recognizable to people who work in the racing industry or are familiar with horse racing.

MB: What are some of the topics you consider, and what are some of your major messages?

KBL: The heart of the book asks a simple question: What are race horses?

Thoroughbred racehorses defy all attempts at categorization. They are certainly not pets—they are far too expensive to maintain, and they have the potential to provide their owners with income. The standard of care may be incredibly high in terms of the attention and intervention an individual horse receives. But the purpose of the care is the animal’s performance.

Source: Simon & Schuster

For horse people, this is emotionally complex: Horse people both make their living on the backs of these animals and interact with them in a day-to-day way that can feel intensely personal. There is no question that horsemen have a deep and abiding affection for the animals they work with.

But there are endless challenges to maintaining a performance animal, difficult practical decisions that must be made if bills are to be paid. (Should a horse be given a rest—depriving his owner of income—or should he be medicated to speed the healing and recovery process, perhaps allowing him to return to the races sooner? Is it worth doing a costly surgery on an older, lower-level horse that likely will never return to the races and be able to pay for its keep?)

Understanding racehorses as “livestock” is key to understanding the standard of care racehorses receive. The standard of welfare is similar to that applied to other animals that are used for the benefit of humans: dairy cattle, chickens, and other livestock. Over the years, Americans have become more cognizant of industrial farming practices and the potential harm it does to individual animals in the name of cheaper chicken in the grocery store, sparking occasional welfare-driven reform and some small consumer-driven market shifts—as well as a related debate over how best to support the farmers and other agricultural workers who depend on a functioning market for chicken.⁴

Of course, Americans don’t eat racehorses. They exist solely to provide an entertainment.

It invites an obvious ethical question: Should the standard of care that this foundationally agricultural industry is held to for the individual animals that it uses be higher than the standard that the food industry must meet for its own?

Animal Behavior Essential Reads

Fun-Loving Penguins: Unlikely Masters of Thievery and Play

Humane Non-Humans: (Un)healthy Bonds?

This is an urgent question for horse racing, which is struggling with dwindling fan support and gambling revenue—driven in part by the perception that the sport is rife with doping and unsafe for horses. One of the challenges the sport now faces is that, for most of America, horses are not seen as “livestock” or “assets.” They are seen as fiercely intelligent, sensitive, sentient beings. This is particularly acute as the number of people who have any day-to-day interaction with animals beyond cats and dogs shrinks.

MB: How does your work differ from others that are concerned with some of the same general topics?

KBL: Often, I think reporting about horse racing that delves into the use of drugs—both legal therapeutic medication and illegal doping agents—tends to focus on the ethical responsibility of the trainer making the decision to give those drugs.

But I wanted to look at the entire incentive structure driving the use of medication in racing. I wanted to understand the role of the racetracks, of the regulatory structure, of the broader business model of producing and racing a horse. Perhaps most importantly, I wanted to understand the role of the social and cultural patterns that govern this incredibly insular, archaic world.

And I wanted to look at the scope of the animal’s entire life. There are so many factors beyond medication that impact soundness and health—some of which begin even before the horse in question is born. Many people, beyond simply the trainer, have a responsibility for husbanding the health of a racehorse across the course of its life.

What I found is that the trainer is often merely the frontline operator in a system that is designed to maximize profit in ways that are sometimes at cross purposes with the animal’s health and well-being.