Sports

Opinion | Why horse racing is stuck in a very bad place

By David Von Drehle
Deputy opinion editor and columnist

Updated May 5, 2023 at 7:02 p.m. EDT | Published May 5, 2023 at 2:09 p.m. EDT



Horses get an early workout at Churchill Downs in Louisville on Friday. (Charlie Riedel/AP)

This was supposed to be the year when things finally began to improve in one of the world’s worst-operated — and most beautiful — sports. ... The recently enacted Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Act promises to bring uniform standards for the care and training of racehorses to the United States for the first time. One of the critical problems facing the sport of kings would finally be tamed: the hodgepodge of regulations and athlete protections from one state to another, one track to another, even one stable to another.

Instead of renewal, horse racing is stuck in a very bad place. While industry leaders resist reform, the biggest event on the horse racing calendar, the Kentucky Derby, is shadowed by the specter of premature death among the magnificent creatures known as thoroughbreds. Churchill Downs in Louisville, scene of the venerable Run for the Roses, saw at least four seemingly healthy horses either die or be euthanized after life-ending injuries in the fortnight leading up to this year’s race.

Though Churchill Downs on Friday suspended the trainer of the two euthanized horses, not all the specifics of the deaths have been determined. But the root causes are widely understood: Follow the money, as the saying goes.

Audiences for horse racing have shrunk steadily across the decades as Americans have drifted away from rural pastimes and gained more options for gambling their money away. A day at the track, once the only legal game in town, lost luster compared with garish casinos, online poker, professional sports books, meme stocks, crypto investing — you name it, just pay your money and take your chances on the boardwalk of the 21st century.

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Opinion by David Von Drehle
David Von Drehle is a deputy opinion editor for The Post and writes a weekly column. He was previously an editor-at-large for Time Magazine, and is the author of four books, including “Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year” and “Triangle: The Fire That Changed America.” Twitter https://twitter.com/DavidVonDrehle