Alan Truex: Breeders’ Cup shows horse racing at its best and worst

Vino Rosso, Todd Fletcher’s honest but unscintillating 4-year-old thoroughbred, romped to a 4-length victory in the most important horse race post-Triple Crown: Saturday’s $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic.  It was one of the most powerful equine runs of the year – 111 Beyer speed figure.  

And yet, Vino’s performance was entirely overshadowed by a tragedy unfolding behind him.  Mongolian Groom, 4-year-old gelding, 20-1 longshot, collapsed at the top of the stretch, his left hind leg splintering.

Out came the green screen to shield a grisly sight from 67,811 spectators at Santa Anita Park near Los Angeles.  They would not have wanted to see a writhing horse loaded into an ambulance and soon to be euthanized.  

When the race was replayed on NBC, Mongolian Groom’s demise was clipped out of it.

That’s how 2019 has been for horse racing. Memorable moments linked to those you want to forget.  

Unsightly tragedy.  Or farce. We had a Kentucky Derby winner disqualified.  Followed by a Preakness with a Hall of Fame jockey dangling from a starting gate that malfunctioned.

Not only was this year ruined, but, at almost the same time, the year before. Turns out that Justified’s Triple Crown is tainted.  He should not have been allowed to compete for it because he tested positive to a banned drug.  At Santa Anita, how fittingly.  His trainer, Icon of the Sport Bob Baffert, was friend and business partner of the president of the California Horse Racing Board that supervises the sport.  

So the Worst Story of the Year – perhaps of any sport — is the ongoing saga of Santa Anita.  Mongolian Groom was the 37th horse to die there in 10 months.   

This procession of death disturbs the most powerful politicians in California.  Sen. Diane Feinstein on Oct. 30 wrote the CHRB to forewarn its guardians that the Breeders’ Cup 14-race, 2-day festival would be “a critical test” for its future. 

“If horse racing cannot be conducted in a humane manner that protects the life and safety of horses and jockeys,” she wrote, “it may be time to examine the future of this sport in our state and our country.”

Though I’ve been a horse-race fan since I was 8, I have to say the Breeders’ Cup failed its test, no matter what sort of curve you’re grading on.

The consequence could be the death of horse racing in California.  In this most democratic and Democratic of states, a petition with 600,000 signatures is enough to put a referendum on a ballot that could eliminate horse racing.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said of the thoroughbred industry: “Their time is up unless they reform.”

Kathy Guillermo, vice president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has been the most vocal critic of the sport.  After Saturday’s disaster she distributed this ominous message: “We will not tolerate another mangled horse.”

She has an apparent ally in Belinda Stronach, CEO of Santa Anita, who months ago won PETA’s approval by upgrading medical instruments and subjecting horses and trainers to review by track officials and independent veterinarians. 

Stronach has the same zero-death goals as Guillermo, who said, “The racing industry must make a choice between doing what’s right by the horses or shutting down forever.”

But what’s “right for the horses”?  

She’s previously said there’s no way horse racing can be a humane sport.  She sees it as inherently horrific that horses are whipped with leather or some synthetic version of it.   

There’s no way she can put her arms around this fact: More than 600 thoroughbred horses die racing in America every year. And approximately that many die not while racing on the track but training on it.  They disappear, usually without notice.  

The carcasses are unceremoniously hauled away to somebody’s dumping ground.  No, they do not become glue. Unfortunately.

So where does the industry go from here? 

You can be sure that most horse owners, like owners of any business, do not want reform or regulation or anything else that Gavin Newsom would have in mind.  

But perhaps they could stave off the leftward politicians by establishing a structured self-government that balances the needs of people and horses.

Though she doesn’t talk about it, Stronach is conflicted between the need for horse safety and the need to make a profit.  Not enough horses in California and affordable land to train them.

She and her minions pressure the trainers to put more horses into the starting gate – or give up their stall space.  The fields are shrinking.

Meanwhile the trainers are told to give their horses more rest to reduce the breakdown rate, which is related not only to training methods but to breeding practices (speed over stamina) and changes in weather and racetrack surfacing.

Since 2011, when Santa Anita switched from cushiony synthetics back to hard dirt, the track’s rate of horse fatalities has risen from 0.8 per 1,000 starts to 2.4.  

If there were a commissioner, there could be oversight of racetrack construction and the training and medicating of every horse, guarding against weary or druggy animals being on the track.

Mongolian Groom, owned and trained by a Mongolian, Enebish Ganbat, raced 11 times this year, all at a mile or longer.  This is a heavy workload. By contrast, Vino Rosso has raced 6 times this year.   

If there was a commissioner, there might be someone to make sure he wasn’t treating American horses like the ones in Mongolia.  All trainers would be subject to review; the sport would be protected from appearance of impropriety. Some horse owners can remember how popular boxing was in the 1960s, before the public decided it was not a legitimate sport.  Too much corruption, no self-control, no unity, no leadership, a rudderless, sinking ship.