Stakeholders in New York’s racing industry—not taxpayers or the betting public—must take responsibility for the humane aftercare of retired racehorses, according to a comprehensive report that has just been issued by The New York State Task Force on Retired Racehorses.
Specifically, the 12-member Task Force recommends that owners should be prepared “to financially support a transition, retraining and placement program for at least six months at a cost of $400 per month, if not longer.”
But the Task Force recognizes that even that won’t be nearly enough to support ex-racers while they transition to new careers or to permanent paddock retirement. The Task Force estimates the annual attrition rate of both thoroughbred and standardbred racehorses as 39%. In 2007, for example, 1,185 New York racehorses were retired, of which 2% were so seriously injured or unsound that they were euthanized.
Citing an average per diem cost of $5 to $10 to maintain a horse in a “pasture retirement scenario,” exclusive of farrier and veterinary expenses, the Task Force put the annual cost of maintaining and transitioning former New York circuit racehorses at approximately $5 million, recommending that these funds be derived by appropriating one-half of one percent of the commissions from video lottery gaming revenue and purses from the state’s thoroughbred and standardbred meets. These funds would be administered by a 13-member Retired Racehorse Fund, who would oversee their disbursement to charitable organizations engaged in the care of off-the-track horses.
Owners and trainers “must consider a horse’s well-being for their entire lifespan—not just their racing career—when making a decision on how long and under what conditions they will race. In this regard, the Task Force has proposed that the New York tracks implement specific strategies designed to ensure full public disclosure of the way in which owners and trainers are managing the horses in their care. For example, it envisions the creation of “a database that includes discloseable disciplinary enforcement actions,” and the “monitoring of each track’s ‘start per stall’ policies for potential abuse of low-level runners.”
What the Task Force did not address is the need for a public database to track the fates of New York racehorses who simply “disappear,” and are subsequently found at notorious kill buyer auctions. In spite of the New York Racing Association’s purported anti-slaughter policy, for example, horses from the NYRA circuit have been rescued from the Canadian slaughter pipeline, while anonymous others have been lost to oblivion. Those horses must be of prime concern, too, and their owners and trainers must be held accountable for what happens to them when their racing days are through.
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