After running a lengthy March 2 opinion piece by Noah Shachtman that questioned why so much money from slot machines, casinos and other subsidies was being to paid to what Shachtman describes as a dying industry in horse racing, the New York Times let its readers have their say. Saturday's edition included five letters to the editor, all from people reacting to a piece entitled “Dead Athletes. Empty Stands. Why Are We Paying Billions to Keep This Sport Alive?”
Five letters were published, including one from NTRA CEO Tom Rooney and another from PETA Vice President Kathy Guillermo.
Rooney focused in on the positive economic impact the sport produces for not just racing but for many industries.
“Mr. Shachtman's essay about horse racing gave short shrift to the sport's upside,” Rooney wrote, “including its positive economic impact. Thoroughbred racing in the United States, according to 2023 data collected by the American Horse Council, has an annual economic impact of $37 billion.
It supports 491,000 jobs, thousands of farms and related businesses. Protecting those jobs and reinvesting in racing is no different than measures that states take to support other sports and businesses that are important to local economies and cultures.”
He continues: (Shachtman's) essay also discounted racing's safety record and its popularity. The sport has never been safer, with 2024 producing the lowest rate of fatal injury since the data have been kept. And, while the sport may not have the standing it did in the days of Seabiscuit, when the gates open for the 2025 Kentucky Derby, that event will attract 150,000 attendees and more television viewers than any single game of the World Series, the N.B.A. finals or the Stanley Cup.”
Guillermo thinks the answer is to replace live racing with Historical Horse Racing Machines, completely overlooking the fact that would destroy the industry and, in particular, the breeding industry.
“The racing industry also cons itself into thinking that its biggest issue is its public image, when it actually has a reality problem,” she wrote. “Hundreds of its involuntary athletes suffer gruesome, catastrophic injuries on the track every year, and you can't spin that away.
“There is a solution. Historical horse racing machines–glorified slot machines that allow gamblers to bet on videos from past races from which all identifying information (date, location, names of horses and jockeys) has been removed–generate billions of dollars annually in Kentucky.
“These machines circumvent the enormous expenses that make live horse racing one of the worst business models. They are not only profitable, but racing without live horses also solves the dead horse problem. Even PETA would support this.”
Nicole St. Clair Knobloch of Arlington, Ma, fell into the pro-racing camp.
“Horse racing is a multilevel socioeconomic enterprise that provides jobs at all levels,” she writes. “Shutting down the sport would mean that those jobs, and the livelihood and meaning derived from them, would never be replaced. Racing-related businesses run from conglomerates to individual trainers, grooms and jockeys, who are perpetual free agents, looking for the next great ride.”
She continued: “It's critical that improvements to the animals' welfare are happening; there are many industries where worker treatment needs improvement. But those improvements are made possible by more public opportunity to enjoy the sport, as there surely will be with the rehabbing of storied tracks like Belmont and Pimlico, providing beauty, nature, animals and afternoon fun right on Long Island and in Baltimore.”
Alex Hanson of Geneva, New York, also took exception to the New York Time story.
“Noah Shachtman's essay portrays horse racing as a sport that is corrupt and dependent on government subsidies to survive while exploiting the animals and workers within it,” he wrote. “But it doesn't paint the whole picture. My father has bred standardbred horses for more than 40 years. His love and care for the animals is profound, and his work has taught me so much about building relationships with people across a range of experiences and identities. I did not recognize my father or the people I have encountered in the harness horse industry in Mr. Shachtman's piece. The good aspects of this sport and the good people involved in it deserve to be seen.”
Judith Mazzucco, from Clarksburg, New Jersey focused on the slaughter issue.
“While Noah Shachtman refers to the vast amounts of money involved in the racing industry, the racehorse owners, the investors, the excellent care the racehorses are given, he never addresses the horror that awaits many of these horses at the end of their racing careers,” she wrote. “Racehorses are retired once they have outlived their usefulness as sources of income for their owners. There are some responsible owners who retire their horses to green pastures. Racehorse retirement organizations strive to save many by finding them adoptive homes. Unfortunately, the fate of thousands of these racehorses each year is to be shipped to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada. That is the true money trail.”
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