PETA: Sen. Feinstein’s call for the suspension of racing is welcome and sensible and should be nationwide to end the bloodbath in every racing state.
ALEX JOHNSON: ‘Sen. Dianne Feinstein called for all racing to be suspended at Santa Anita Park on Tuesday after a 23rd horse was fatally injured since Christmas at the track, one of the most prestigious venues in the sport. “The death of a single horse is a tragedy, but as a lifelong lover of horses, I’m appalled that almost two dozen horses have died in just four months,” the California Democrat said in a letter to Chuck Winner, chairman of the California Horse Racing Board.
The letter was sent five days before the park in Arcadia, about 20 miles northeast of Los Angeles, is scheduled to host the $1 million Santa Anita Derby, one of the sport’s premier events… Twenty-one horses suffered injuries that required them to be euthanized from Dec. 26 until March 5, when racing was suspended as track officials tried to figure out what was going wrong. A 22nd horse was murdered following a training accident March 14…
Separately, the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, on Monday called on the board to enact emergency rules to ban the use of all drugs and at California tracks… Kathy Guillermo, PETA’s senior vice president for investigative and legal cases, said in a statement…
“Sen. Feinstein’s call for the suspension of racing is welcome and sensible and should be nationwide to end the bloodbath in every racing state. The California Horse Racing Board should use the down time to make truly meaningful changes. As PETA has said from the start, all drugs — including Lasix, which slows bone healing — must be banned for at least two weeks before racing and training. If horses need therapeutic medications, they shouldn’t be running. High-quality synthetic tracks are known to be safer and must be installed. The board must ban trainers who drug horses instead of assessing paltry fines. Horse racing has many more problems that need attention, but without these essential changes, horses will continue to die — something neither the public nor PETA will tolerate”.’ SOURCE…
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