If horseracing is a sport, then that word must be redefined, for the competitive racing of horses resembles no other accepted sport on the planet:
In what other sport are the bodies of adolescent athletes pounded into the ground?
In what other sport are the athletes typically kept confined/isolated 23 hours a day?
In what other sport are the athletes condemned to a life as (literal) chattel?
In what other sport are the athletes drugged and doped without consent?
In what other sport are the athletes whipped for motivation?
In what other sport are the athletes regularly dying on the playing field?
In what other sport are most of the retired brutally slaughtered for their meat?
Horseracing a sport? If not for the gravity involved, it would be absurd. No, horseracing is but exploitation of a weaker species for the most shameful of reasons – $2 bets. To those who sustain this sordid business, we say: Slake those gambling urges with decidedly inanimate slots and scratch-offs; leave the horses out of it. To those who trade in equines in the pursuit of cash and fleeting glory, we say: Find a commodity that doesn’t bleed; take up a hobby that can’t cry out in pain. Enough.
– Patrick Battuello
