Straight from the Horse's Heart

by Christine Church

Mary Anna is a Standardbred race horse. She won her owner a lot of money, so when she broke her leg, it was fixed and her life was saved. Now, she gets to spend the rest of her life pregnant!

Mary Anna is one of the lucky ones

But Mary Anna is one of the “lucky” ones. If she had not been such a good girl and won her owner all that money, chances are she would have been put down when her ankle broke.Or, she would have been scurried off to auction, lame, where those hungry for the cash in horse slaughter await.

Lately, I have been dedicating portions of my writing space here at the Examiner to the sport of horse racing. I am not deliberately trying to start a fight over the controversies inevitable in such an endeavor, but rather trying to get opinions, trying to create awareness and hoping that if my words can make a positive difference, however small, for even one horse it will be worth the time.

As many know, and as I have written in my article on Thoroughbred racing, pitting two horses against one another is a very old sport (there are crueler sports involving horses, and I will be touching on those as well, but for now I have much to say and much I want to hear on horse racing).

I once boarded my own horse (a grey overo Paint, not a race horse) at a Standardbred broodmare farm. We were there for four and half years and in that time I saw many foals born and too many die. I saw mares that stood in muddy paddocks pregnant 11 months out of every year (mares were trucked out with 4 week old foals to get re-inseminated). I saw horses with untreated infections come in from other farms only to be put down because they weren’t treated on time.

I’m not saying certain things can’t happen in any situation, but in the racing world, mortality rates and casualties are far too high. Is there anything that can be done? Unfortunately, as far as I can see, until people get over their excessive greed with money (to the point where they exploit animals as if they were unfeeling machines), things won’t change much in the racing industry.  A horse that isn’t winning money is useless to most race horse owners, and therefore destined to a very uncertain future.

Mary Anna shows us another casualty of the race horse world, one that many people do not know nor ever think about: she has no personality.  This might seem like a triality to many, but her lack of individualness is due to a life of what I refer to as “conveyer belt living.”  She was born to do a job, not to receive treats, love or even freedom. Race horses rarely see pasture until they retire (if they are lucky enough to make it to retirement and stay out of auctions), they aren’t allowed to “be horses.” They aren’t nurtured as pets nor cared for as a member of the family.  They certainly aren’t loved. They are lined up to be readied for a race, they have a number in the barn rather than a name.  They are cooped in a stall unless working and learning how to be the fastest. They live a prisoner life yet they committed no crime.

Mary Anna is lucky; she is living on a nice private farm right now and is surrounded by people who are not her owners, people who love her, and slowly, she is starting to show some personality.