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Equine equality
By Emile Hallez
ehallez@mscd.edu

Where were you when you found out Barbaro died? I was in an editing class, wondering why a dead horse landed on the front page of the Denver Post. In the egalitarian, mint-julep-sipping arena of horse racing, I was a flea-bitten outsider adorned in an old potato sack. But thanks to a cleansing shower of obituaries, I am now able to converse fluently with the likes of derby regular Pamela Anderson or the omnipresent Colonel Sanders.

But we’re all a little too choked up to talk.

Barbaro, winner of the 2006 Kentucky Derby, fractured a leg bone during last year’s Preakness Stakes. Before dying early last week, his struggle to survive captivated a nationwide audience of equestrians and general idiots.

Unfortunately, all this mourning falls short of progress. I’m encouraged that the life of an animal has touched so many humans. However, it took centuries of eugenic dabbling and speciesim to get to this point – and we haven’t come close to realizing the hypocrisy.

According to ESPN writer Pat Forde, we need “an industry-wide resolve to examine horse racing and make it a safer sport.”

I couldn’t agree more. An estimated 800 thoroughbreds die in North America every year due to injuries, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals reports. A “safer sport,” in my estimation, would be one ridden with stick ponies.

Like Anderson, a faithful patron of the so-called sport, thoroughbreds are made blatantly top-heavy. Unlike Anderson, “They are really running on the tip of a single finger … it’s a delicate system,” said Jason Bruemmer, an associate professor of equine sciences at Colorado State University. He contends that if horses are cared for and trained properly, racing is not inherently detrimental to their health.

Since thoroughbreds weigh a half-ton and run on appendages reminiscent of stilts, one must wonder how conscionable it is to force these animals to compete for our amusement and gambling addictions. Though many horses are well cared for, there will always be people willing to race unhealthy ones in order to line their pockets.

The outpouring of sentiment from Barbaro’s death is misplaced. Had he not earned $2 million from the Kentucky Derby, he likely would have been euthanized long before January or possibly sent to one of the remaining U.S. horse slaughterhouses. So let’s take all this sadness, turn it into some healthy dissent and direct it at the real cause of Barbaro’s demise.