Top 10 Reasons Why Horse Racing is Stupid

Inbreeding weakens the genetic strain of any animal. Thrououghbred horses are particulary at risk. All thoroughbred horses racing today have been traced back to only 28 animals (3 stallions and 25 mares) imported from the Near East during the 17th and 18th centuries. Ever heard of Darley Arabian? 95 per cent of all thrououghbred racing horses descended from him.

Horses are built to gambol, humans evidently prefer to gamble. Turn off the betting and the entire industry dries up. Certainly uber-rich sheiks and bored billiionaires will continue to breed horses for amusement, but no public racing venue could possibly survive. No one goes to the track just to watch random ponies run in a circle.

Betting benefits no one except the house. Inveterate gamblers with no self-control chase an impossible dream of getting rich by picking which animal will win a race. Mortgage payments are lost on sucker bets. Families lose their financial security.

Race Tracks are built in suburban areas that would be better served by a park or a shopping mall or government housing. The amount of money lost to taxes alone is huge. Certainly a race track pays real estate taxes, but developing the land into more useful applications would result in a much higher rate of return to taxpayers.

The majority of participants are probably honest citizens, but gambling attracts a certain element that has little respect for obeying the law. A desperate gambler who plans to make a living betting on the ponies just might take advantage of any opportunity to raise a few dollars for that next race.

Several Kentucky legislators were 'stung' by the FBI when they accepted illegal inducements to support horse-racing legislation. Titled Operation BopTrot, the operation cost (Democrat) House Speaker Donald J. Blandford his job and some of his freedom. He was sentenced to 64 months for extortion, racketeering, and lying to FBI agents because he accepted a bribe and agreed to influence horse racing legislation.

The jockeys get dirty and sweaty, but nobody will pay to watch me mow the lawn. It's all about the animals: the best jockey on the slowest horse has no chance against the worst jockey on the fastest horse.

Jockeys do not carry a whip for the purpose of keeping flies off their silks. That whip has a specific purpose when those beasts are pounding down the stretch nose-to-nose. For some reason, a horse in which millions of dollars has been invested is thwacked mercilessly at crunch time.

In 2007-2008, the Commonwealth of Kentucky poured 28 million dollars of taxpayer monies into programs designed to prop up their horse breeding industry.

Our US Federal government supports horses and horse farms impacted by natural disasters. Taxpayer money funds the U.S. Equine Disaster Relief Fund that comes to the aid of those who would race horses for profit.

The Farm Service Agency, a subset of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers emergency loans to equine operations that raise thoroughbred horses.

In 2011, the Commonwealth of Kentucky contributed 300,000 dollars to a project intended to simply count all the horses within the borders. The total cost of the project was budgeted to be $600,000.