To the Editor:
Re “It’s Dangerous, It’s Unpopular, and We’re Paying Billions to Keep It Alive,” by Noah Shachtman (Opinion visitor essay, March 2):
Mr. Shachtman’s essay about horse racing gave brief shrift to the game’s upside, together with its constructive financial affect. Thoroughbred racing in america, based on 2023 knowledge collected by the American Horse Council, has an annual economic impact of $37 billion.
It helps 491,000 jobs, hundreds of farms and associated companies. Defending these jobs and reinvesting in racing is not any completely different than measures that states take to help different sports activities and companies which might be vital to native economies and cultures.
New York State’s relationship with the New York Racing Affiliation allowed the state to take possession of 900 acres of worthwhile property and for the growth of the Resorts World on line casino at Aqueduct, the state’s largest taxpayer, producing greater than $4 billion in income for the state’s public training fund, a proven fact that Mr. Shachtman didn’t point out.
His essay additionally discounted racing’s security file and its recognition. The game has by no means been safer, with 2024 producing the lowest rate of deadly harm for the reason that knowledge have been saved. And, whereas the game could not have the standing it did within the days of Seabiscuit, when the gates open for the 2025 Kentucky Derby, that occasion will entice 150,000 attendees and extra tv viewers than any single recreation of the World Collection, the N.B.A. finals or the Stanley Cup.
Tom Rooney
Washington
The author is the chief government officer of the Nationwide Thoroughbred Racing Affiliation.
To the Editor:
Noah Shachtman particulars how the racing business not solely hustles New York State taxpayers but in addition tries for the last word con by arguing {that a} dropping type of playing needs to be sponsored by a worthwhile type of playing.
This rip-off will get worse when the business makes an attempt to justify the losses with “financial affect” figures, making an attempt to make the case that the business creates jobs that improve tax income. That is like celebrating an earthquake for rising G.D.P. due to jobs created to reply to it.
The racing business additionally cons itself into considering that its greatest challenge is its public picture, when it really has a actuality drawback. A whole lot of its involuntary athletes endure ugly, catastrophic accidents on the monitor yearly, and you may’t spin that away.
There’s a answer. Historic horse racing machines — glorified slot machines that enable gamblers to wager on movies from previous races from which all figuring out data (date, location, names of horses and jockeys) has been eliminated — generate billions of {dollars} yearly in Kentucky.
These machines circumvent the large bills that make dwell horse racing one of many worst enterprise fashions. They aren’t solely worthwhile, however racing with out dwell horses additionally solves the useless horse drawback. Even PETA would help this.
Kathy Guillermo
Norfolk, Va.
The author is a senior vice chairman at Individuals for the Moral Remedy of Animals (PETA).
To the Editor:
Noah Shachtman’s essay portrays horse racing as a sport that’s corrupt and depending on authorities subsidies to outlive whereas exploiting the animals and employees inside it. However it doesn’t paint the entire image.
My father has bred standardbred horses for greater than 40 years. His love and look after the animals is profound, and his work has taught me a lot about constructing relationships with folks throughout a spread of experiences and identities.
I didn’t acknowledge my father or the folks I’ve encountered within the harness horse business in Mr. Shachtman’s piece. The nice features of this sport and the nice folks concerned in it need to be seen.
Alex Hanson
Geneva, N.Y.
To the Editor:
Horse racing is a multilevel socioeconomic enterprise that gives jobs in any respect ranges. Shutting down the game would imply that these jobs, and the livelihood and which means derived from them, would by no means get replaced.
Racing-related companies run from conglomerates to particular person trainers, grooms and jockeys, who’re perpetual free brokers, searching for the following nice trip.
Its equal alternative extends to the followers; for all of the subsidies of soccer and basketball, who amongst us can afford to go to a recreation? Actually not most of the households you’ll discover picnicking at Saratoga, having gotten onto the grounds for just a few {dollars} for an entire day of enjoyable.
It’s vital that enhancements to the animals’ welfare are taking place; there are a lot of industries the place employee remedy wants enchancment.
However these enhancements are made potential by extra public alternative to benefit from the sport, as there certainly can be with the rehabbing of storied tracks like Belmont and Pimlico, offering magnificence, nature, animals and afternoon enjoyable proper on Lengthy Island and in Baltimore.
And at last, racing’s alternatives prolong to folks like me, a horse rider who may by no means afford that elitist sport however for the racehorse retraining barn the place I trip, and the place I get to see these magnificent animals get pleasure from as a lot as two and a half a long time extra life and love after their racing profession has ended.
Many people do need racing. And lots of get pleasure from its advantages even when they by no means perceive why.
Nicole St. Clair Knobloch
Arlington, Mass.
To the Editor:
Whereas Noah Shachtman refers back to the huge quantities of cash concerned within the racing business, the racehorse homeowners, the buyers, the wonderful care the racehorses are given, he by no means addresses the horror that awaits many of those horses on the finish of their racing careers.
Racehorses are retired as soon as they’ve outlived their usefulness as sources of revenue for his or her homeowners. There are some accountable homeowners who retire their horses to inexperienced pastures. Racehorse retirement organizations try to save lots of many by discovering them adoptive properties.
Sadly, the destiny of hundreds of those racehorses annually is to be shipped to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada. That’s the true cash path.
Judith Mazzucco
Clarksburg, N.J.
