It was refreshing to hear of Remington Park’s efforts to try to help solve the problem of horse slaughter. Trainers at Remington who are caught disposing of horses for slaughter will now lose their rights to stalls at the track, and therefore their ability to train there. Hats off to Remington Park for this. It is a step in the right direction.
But it doesn’t go far enough. If tracks can implement rules like this for trainers, then they should implement similar rules for owners who the tracks licence to own and race horses.
Trainers are usually the people who make the arrangements for a horse that can no longer race, to leave the racetrack. Owners pay the bills when the horse is in training of course, but they have little to do with the day to day life of the horse and usually leave the task of finding a home, (or not…), when its racing days are over to the trainer. Many trainers do a great job finding a horse a new home, but some less scrupulous trainers will tell owners what they want to hear, for example, that they “gave the horse away to this guy who turns them into riding horses.” Sadly that is often a lie and “the guy” who took the horse will actually be sending it to feedlot auctions, where it will be sold cheaply, he will pocket the money and then the horse will be transported to Mexico or Canada for slaughter.
Often the owner does not want to question the trainer and neither wants to go investigating or turning over rocks, because they know they might not like what they find underneath and would rather not know the truth. And right now, with things structured as they currently are, the owner can get away with burying their head in the sand in this manner and avoid taking any responsibility for their horse’s fate.
If tracks are prepared to ban trainers for sending horses to slaughter, they should commit to ban the owners of those horses too. The owner of the horse, after all, is ultimately the responsible party.
Every track in the country needs to implement a policy like this. Horse racing in the USA will not thrive again until and unless the problem of horse slaughter, along with the drug issue, is solved.