#thoroughbred racehorse

[track2hack]

03.02.2025

The 2024 filly we got from Karaka last week arrived at the trainer’s! 🤩

ISN’T SHE PRECIOUS 😭😭😭

She’s called Tinks in honour of the trainer’s beloved pet cat who passed on the same morning she arrived home 🥹💕

[heartlandhoofprints]

Dornoch & Pony at Churchill by Alicia Hamm

[virtie333]

What an amazing picture!

Cell phone photo of AMERICAN PHAROAH at Ashford stud earlier this week. Behind him are Epicenter (bay) and fellow Triple Crown winner Justify (chestnut). Photo by Nicole Meiner.

[ofhoovesandheart]

japanese racehorse blinders 🍀

[whywishesarehorses]

Horse Mountain Bear and Chris Hayes at Keeneland last night!

“This is normal carry-on for the famously rambunctious Mountain Bear and they went on to finish third in the Turf Mile (Grade 1).”

The photographer was Frances Karon

[horseimagebarn]

https://archive.is/LAwFB <- Here is a link to a 2023 National Geographic article about horse slaughter in the Americas. You might be interested to know that thoroughbreds actually make up only 10% of horses exported for slaughter. The vast majority of retired racehorses in the US and the UK that aren't kept for breeding purposes go on to second careers or are simply kept as companion animals. This is *NOT* to say that the racing industry doesn't have horrific problems, but rather that even when they don't succeed on the racetrack, the horses are still worth more alive than they are as food. Quarter horses, on the other hand...YEESH. Let's just say the Jockey Club keeps meticulous track of how many thoroughbreds are foaled every year. The AQHA...doesn't.

for context this ask is referring to this post i made yesterday

i have much to say on this and ended up just rambling about horse which i love to do when given an intriguing ask so here we go

punctuation and capitalization usage for ease of understanding GO!

sorry if this makes no sense i just went crazy and hate proofreading

Thoroughbreds are not the only racehorse, their racing is just the most popular kind in the States. Quarter horses are actually a bit faster than thoroughbreds, but that makes their races quicker and less entertaining to rich betters. Standardbreds and arabians are also popular racers, but standardbreds are used more in harness racing, and arabians for endurance. 

"Pinhooking" is a popular thing in horse racing. According to horseologyinc.com, "Pinhooking is a fancy term that describes the practice of buying a horse at one stage of development and selling them at the next." This makes it difficult to track every single horse's purchase history, because there are just so many transactions being made. The Jockey Club can track births, sure, and it can do its best to track deaths, but the births of potential successful racehorses are much more interesting to the organization than the deaths of former ones. Even if deaths were monitored with the same vigor, horses would slip through the cracks, and oh brother, they already do. It's impossible to expect an organization that facilitates the often-fatal exploitation of horses to be stalwart advocates of its victims' aftercare. Even if they witnessed the slaughter of thoroughbreds in Canadian slaughterhouses, what's the difference between a horse that died for meat and a horse that died for the entertainment of the bourgeoisie? They both end up dead, and the Jockey Club doesn't deal in dead horses, it deals in eventually dead horses.

Many racehorses are later sold out of the industry once they've served their two potential purposes: racing and breeding. Once a horse is sold to a private owner that isn't involved in the racing industry—including the Amish, who often buy ex-racers as work animals—the Jockey Club's influence, if there is any, can falter. Sure, some are treated with a lavish retirement at Old Friends or Akindale or even Puerto Rico, but many, many horses do not have that privilege. Horses do not have the pull (pun intended) they once did in American society. They are a luxury to most, as their cost of upkeep and maintenance often outweighs their function when compared to machinery that performs similar jobs. Kill buyers—those who buy horses in bulk to export for slaughter—buy horses private owners either cannot or do not want to keep investing in their companion. More often than not, they don't register their purchase of horses for slaughter with the Jockey Club, nor really with anyone, as laws surrounding horse slaughter and export are murky at best and nonexistent at worst. I want to provide you more evidence of this, but the Jockey Club's website keeps timing out for me, so I'll try later.

USA Today estimates that 7500 thoroughbreds are slaughtered for meat each year. When compared to the 57000 total horses slaughtered annually, this resembles the 10% number you gave me. Compare this to the 600 thoroughbreds estimated to die each year in race-related accidents. The racing industry is constantly criticized for its mistreatment of its horses and the deadliness of its sport, and yet, slaughter claims over 12 times the amount of thoroughbreds each year—likely more. I personally believe that it is very unlikely that kill buyers accurately judge the breeds of the horses they slaughter. These buyers process thousands of horses each year and transport them in large quantities. They do not care what breed the horses they process are. It's the meat that matters. Similarly, these kill buyers are not checking the lip of every horse they buy to see if it's a former racer. Some might, if they're looking to "ransom" some of their horses off—sell the horses to non-slaughterhouse buyers for much higher than the ~60 cents/pound they get for their meat—but it's unlikely. Mike McBarron, a long-time kill buyer in Texas, told USA Today Sports, "It’s just a job to me. I mean, I don’t attach myself to them." He went on to say that he has "bought and sold retired racehorses for slaughter [and] sent tens of thousands of horses to slaughter plants," generating "millions of dollars in revenue." To kill buyers like McBarron, these horses are products to be processed and shipped, not beings whose personalities and histories are meant to be known, or whose breeds are significant to their new function: becoming meat.

And this is just thoroughbreds. Quarter horses are the most popular breed of horse in the U.S., and, like you said, there's even less regulation of the sales of other breeds. I just think it's unfair to say that the Jockey Club cares enough about its horses that they don't end up in slaughterhouses.

By the way, I don't think it is morally wrong to eat horses. Cows, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, and other livestock animals can have just as much personality as your average horse and are not afforded the public outcry horses receive when it comes to their slaughter. Horse lives are not worth more than other "farm" animals just because they are viewed as companion animals while the rest are not. I instead have a problem with the fact that horses used for meat are often severely mistreated, just as they are in the racing industry. Regulations have been put in place to improve the lives of many meat animals, and yet, the government largely shuffles its feet when it comes to regulating the production of horse meat. This encourages kill buyers to do shady business and mistreat their animals, exploiting a loophole in the government's weak implication of a ban on horse meat: in their 2006 budget, U.S. Congress decided to simply forbid the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) from using taxpayers' money to inspect horse slaughter plants. This sort of banned horse slaughter by preventing horse slaughter plants from being USDA inspected or approved, making them functionally illegal, as they require regulation, but meant that kill buyers could instead simply collect horses and then sell them to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada for slaughter. This encourages a shitty, shady business of horse exportation, leading to horrible temporary holding conditions as horses wait to be transported across country borders in equally horrible trucks and trailers. If the industry was legal and faced the same regulations as other types of meat production, these horses would have much better lives. Though I am very aware of the many, many flaws of the meat industry, denying horses even those basic protections that are applied to meat animals, especially large ones like cows, only encourages abuse and mistreatment. Big advancements in animal welfare in the meat industry have been made in the past few decades, and it is not the ethical win many think it is to force horses to live in horrible, barely-legal conditions because it is hard to accept the facts that:

Horses are large, hard-to-care-for animals whose main function in American society has mostly become obsolete 

Even in their current major societal role, racing, they face massive amounts of abuse and mistreatment

There are a LOT of horses in the world (so many, in fact, that they sometimes become pests or invasive species)

Every single horse will not have the privilege of a forever home that can provide for them the utmost care

Some horses can live satisfactory lives as PROPERLY CARED FOR meat animals if given the chance

Horse meat is a valid, valued food source for many people

I know it's crazy for The Horse Blog to say they support horse meat production and consumption, but honestly, I've tried my best to express on this blog that no being is greater than another and all things deserve equal love and appreciation. It would be hypocritical of me to condemn horse meat consumption when I myself eat the meat of cows, pigs, and chickens, who are just as valuable as horses in the grand scheme of the universe. All living things have value that is not contingent on their perceived purpose or use. Meat consumption is a necessity for many in the world, both human and inhuman, and the consumption of meat on its own is not unethical. To live is to consume, be it meat, vegetation, oxygen, water, time, space, etc. and I believe that we should strive not to abhor consumption but do it ethically, in alignment with our world's fragile, functional balance of creation and destruction, and with utmost respect for that which we consume. Horses deserve that respect.

anyway yeah feel free to engage with me on this i like discussing stuff like this and spent way too long thinking and researching and stuff

Sources: "Horses go from racetracks to slaughterhouses: 'It's just a job to me'" by Josh Peter with USA Today

"Horse racing deaths mount as states spend billions to keep tracks alive" by Frank Esposito and Stephen Edelson with USA Today Network

"What is Pinhooking? The History and Practice of Pinhooking." from horseologyinc.com

"Horse Racing Fact Sheet" from fundforhorses.org

ps this wasnt made as an attack on you anon or anything i like to write horse essay style posts sometimes like this and this because its honestly super fun for me and i love receiving these types of asks i am always happy to talk about horse stuff at length like this because i end up learning a lot about these subjects too as i go

[hippography]

© W. A. Rouch

ROCKSAND

Brown Horse (1900) by SAINFOIN—ROQUEBRUNE by ST. SIMON

ROCKSAND was the best three-year-old in England in 1903, winning the Two Thousand Guineas, the Epsom Derby and the Doncaster St. Leger. As a four-year-old he won theJockey Club Stakes and the Princess of Wales Stakes. As a three-year-old he met Ard Patrick and Sceptre in the race for the Eclipse Stakes and ran third to them. On the death of his owner, Sir James Miller, ROCKSAND was offered for sale in 1906 and was purchased for stock purposes by Major August Belmont and brought to America where he became the sire of many winners among them Tracery, Rockview, Friar Rock, Flint Rock, Trap Rock.

In 1913 ROCKSAND was sold to a syndicate of French and American breeders and taken to France where he died a few seasons later. His son, Tracery, sent to England as a yearling, won the St. Leger, and was sold to go to the Argentine; the great success of his sons and daughters led to his return to England in 1913 and he died at the Cobham stud in August, 1914. Among his get were Papyrus, the Derby winner, Flamboyant, Teresina, Arcade, Triumph, Transvaal, etc. In America, the daughters of ROCKSAND have bred more successfully than his sons—Man o' War, Hourless, Mad Hatter, Mad Play, Sporting Blood, Dunlin, Chatterton and Messenger all being sons of ROCKSAND mares.

This photograph of ROCKSAND was taken at the time he won the Epsom Derby, in 1903, hence he is in racing condition.

Henry H. Saylor (ed.), 1926, Thoroughbred types, 1900-1925

[smarty-jones]

Post Time trains for the 2024 Breeders Cup Dirt Mile

(x)

[tackless]

Hawthorne Race Course

summer 2024

[horseracingweekly]

The first ever EQUINOX foal! 🎌

Out of German mare LA FORCE the filly even shares a very similar blaze to her dad ❤️

📸 @/shiraoifarm on IG

[damn-these-vampyrs]

Japanese Race Horses

[track2hack]

01.04.2025

Mappy comes back into work today after her summer spell!! 🤩🙌

[faelunez]

most normal umineko analysis: characters as horse breeds ! 🌝🐴

Battler: Standardbred, Kinzo: Oldenburger, George: Suffolk Punch, Jessica: Halfinger, Natsuhi: Westphalian Horse, Krauss: Lipizzan Horse, Eva: Thoroughbred, Hideyoshi: Norman Cob, Rudolph: Paso Fino, Kyrie: Orlov Trotter, Rosa: Trakehner, Maria: Noma Horse, Genji: Andalusian, Kumasawa: Kladruber horse, Gohda: Groninger, Dr. Nanjo: Percheron, Kanon: Slovak Sport Pony, Shannon: Hucul Pony, Erika: Arabian, Beatrice: Akhal-Teke

[aversiteespabilas]

Some recent horse art I've been working on. I'm meaning to compile my horse racing illustrations into a printed calendar for the lovely folks at Madrid's racetrack. The horses featured are:

Veleta, Cromatic & Kantio along Sanlúcar Beach

Azkar with his jockey Denisa Sikorová, celebrating her becoming the first female jockey to win a classic race in Spain.

Spanish horse Rodaballo (center) wins a Group 1 race by a snout against Jin Jin (left) and Liberty London (right) at the Baden-Baden racecourse.

Our magnificent mare Samedi Rien wins the Hispanidad for the third consecutive time, after a morning of torrential rain, by an impressive seven lengths. You can see Madrid's skyline in the background.

[ofhoovesandheart]

flightline!! ✈️

[justgrabmane]

I like em big, I like em chunky ✨

Update on my new horse!! My boy seems to be settling in to his new home. It has officially gone from medium weight weather to sheet weather, and his new waterproofed sheet should’ve arrived today. I really wanted to be there to properly fit him for his blankets aside from what the track told me he was in…I guess I’m just happy he has a couple blankets but they’re a bit long.

Here he is sunning himself in the slop that is the PNW. I don’t know how tall that fence is just yet, but he’s probably going to settle out around 17 hands once he’s got his feet figured out. I didn’t think that part of it through, I was hoping for a guy under 17 but it is what it is. Love that guy.

His feet are going to be a journey, we’re battling some typical thoroughbred feet. However, it’s nothing serious enough it can’t be fixed. I will get you guys a hoof map whenever I get a chance post move.

That’s about all I have for now in the way of updates on him. For now I’m doing some research on what supplements and extras I can add to his diet to help his post track transition. Until the next update, enjoy the boy.