Horse races are romanticized on TV, but behind the picturesque facade is a world of injuries, drug abuse, gruesome breakdowns and slaughter. Thousands of spectators show up to the track, dressed in fancy outfits, and sip mint juleps, but the horses are running for their lives. They weigh more than 1,000 pounds and are whipped to sprint—often on hard-packed dirt—at speeds so fast that they can sustain serious injuries, hemorrhage from their lungs, or even collapse and die. Many end up in slaughterhouses, where they are killed for not being fast enough or able to win.
The post-mortem examination of Havnameltdown, the winner of the Preakness Stakes, revealed issues that may be alarming to people outside of horse racing. It was found to have severe degenerative joint changes, bone cysts (holes in the bones), and osteoarthritis in all four of its limbs. It also had a fractured rib, a dislocated shoulder and a broken fetlock joint.
Those injuries are just part of the problem in an industry that has been plagued by scandals for decades. It’s a multibillion-dollar business that’s rife with drug use, race fixing, and injuries to horses. Many horses who retire from the racetrack are sent to pastures where they live out their remaining years, but others aren’t able to retrain or find jobs, and ultimately, most end up in slaughterhouses.
Media scholars have studied horse-race reporting to understand how news stories frame elections as a competitive game, parsing polls and data and giving the most positive attention to frontrunners and underdogs gaining momentum. It’s a strategy that has long been employed in political coverage, but it has real consequences for the election season ahead and the future of democracy.
ANNIE AGUIAR: As we enter the final stretch of this presidential campaign, the stakes are higher than ever. Candidates are fighting harder than ever to secure the votes needed to win, and with a few months left until Election Day, we’re seeing a lot of familiar campaign tactics. One of the most pernicious is horse-race journalism, which is when news organizations compare candidates’ performance to that of a horse. It’s a form of bias that can lead to distortion and misinformation.
So we decided to ask actual horse-race journalists what they think about the practice. We spoke to a few of them about how they see their profession and what they think about the way in which political reporters treat their candidates. Here are their answers, in their own words.