Letters to the Editor: Don’t let greed keep killing racing horses. These are the changes the sport needs

To the editor: As those still interested in horse raising are perhaps reluctantly discovering, it is the horses themselves that deserve serious attention. Their continued injuries and deaths are becoming intolerable. (“Why do race horses keep dying? Inside the sport’s push to solve a formidable problem,” June 9)

The existence of horse racing depends on a flawed premise: that a poorly regulated, entrenched system can continue without the changes it needs to survive. It is possible to create a sport with no horse deaths, but a total revamping must take place.

The horses must be older so that their limbs are stronger. Medications and other pain-masking agents and performance-enhancing drugs must be discontinued. Eliminate corrupt trainers and veterinarians whose only interest is profit.

Give the horses a more normal life instead of the solitary one they are forced to endure in a stall. End the use of the painful metal “bit” in the horse’s mouth. End the use of the whip to force more speed. Give the horses a retirement home.

If the horse-racing business is to survive in any form, these vital changes must be made now.

Elaine Livesey-Fassel, Los Angeles

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To the editor: If in any other “sport” participants were injured or killed in the numbers that these beautiful animals are, it would cease to exist, as horse racing should.

It seems that gambling on the outcome is more important to race attendees than the safety of the participants. The damage that out-of-control betting has on the gamblers and their families is just one more reason to put horse racing out to pasture.

Kent Grigsby, Riverside

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To the editor: On Mother’s Day I took the family to Santa Anita Park. We had a good time. The horses are stunningly beautiful animals and a thrill to see run.

But I must be honest: I spent the entire time hoping that nothing would happen to any of them. Luckily nothing did.

I know that many people depend on horse racing for their livelihood, but personally I think that one horse death is too many, let alone the dozens nationwide every year. It’s time to end it.

Chuck Heinz, West Hills