Racing is a big industry and a lot of money changes hands. In the US alone it is a "sport" worth $10 billion. Nonhuman animals are not more than commodities in this game, even less than cars in a race. They are "filled with fuel", and not even "repaired" when damaged, and when there is no way they can "make" more money they are discarded.

In order to display the fastest horses, the race industry reproduces huge amounts of horses and selects the fastest among them. The unselected ones will carry wagons, will be sent to the circus or slaughtered for meat consumption.

Most horses start with flat racing - sprinting along a course, at the age of two, three years before they are fully mature. "Owners" race them early because they are impatient to get a return for their investment, upkeep and training expenditures. This is despite the fact that racing places an enormous strain on their under-developed limbs.

At three years old, the very few horses who possess speed ability and stud potential will contest the classics and other valuable races. Slower horses will run in handicaps and selling races, where they can be disposed of to different owners and trainers.

The industry is making tremendous efforts in order to make the horses run faster. The ingenuity is limitless:

• They use special instruments to broaden the bronchi in order to widen the horse’s airways.
• They use hormones in order to increase the red blood cells (red blood cells carry oxygen).
• They inject venom into the horses’ joint in order to harden the joint.
• They infuse a mixture of carbonated water, sugar and electrolytes in order to increase the levels of carbon dioxide in the horses’ blood and to decrease the lactic acid. They do that to prevent exhaustion.
• They use thousands of drugs.
• They use oppression and subjugation methods.
• They use batteries that are planted under the horse skin which will give the horses an electric shock when they slow down during the race.

Race horses are turned into junkies by their trainers and veterinarians, who provide drugs to keep them on the track even when they cannot race anymore. Commonly used drugs such as Lasix (furosemide) and Bute (phenylbutazone) and other pain relievers, numb pain, but do not treat the injuries that cause it.
Horses are forced to race with hairline fractures, that without drugs would be too painful to run on, so the punters and trainers will not lose money.
The pain killers effect fades at some point and the horses which spend around 20 hours in the barn everyday are forced to bear the horrible pain for all these hours.

In some cases the injured horse is being kept alive so that his greedy owner would be able to pump semen and therefore money out of him.

The horses suffer from a wide range of diseases and injuries because they start to train and race, before their body and skeleton are fully developed. They suffer from injuries and chronic lameness, but it does not matter to anyone as long as the money continues to flow.

Centuries of selective genetic breeding caused horses to be born with fragile, twisted bodies. The thoroughbred horse is a genetic freak. He runs too fast, with a too large frame, on too small legs.

These horses lack fully developed bone structure, and are more likely to suffer injury. They develop acute lameness and often break a leg in the race. This is because their skeletal and muscular systems have not fully developed leading to shin soreness, which is a consequence of the cartilage plate, in the shaft of the leg bone, undergoing too much strain. It causes a tear in the periosteum layer around the bone leading to haemorrhage, acute lameness and scar tissue. Their body is feeble.

They run 72 km per hour (45 mile), weigh 1,000 pounds, and have ankles as small as yours and mine

Horses are herd animals with strong social behavioral needs, who prefer to play and enjoy the companionship of their own kind. But like every other sort of exploitation system this natural behavior is denied from them. They have no contact with fellow horses.

Apart from minimal exercise in the morning and the race, they are kept in a small stall for more than 20 hours a day, in dark dingy stables, separated from each other. They often develop neurotic stereotypic behaviors, similar to animals seen in factory farms and circuses, such as wood chewing, box walking (round and round the stall), wind sucking (grasping an object with the teeth and sucking in air), or weaving (swaying the head, neck and forequarters from side to side).
They are deprived of natural behavior such as foraging hay, straw bedding, and visual contact with other horses.

During the race, the jockeys are beating the horses with a whip while screaming and yelling at them. They kick the horses with metal goads, sticking them into the horses’ ribs, in order to urge them to run faster, particularly when approaching the finish line.

90% of horses in races have lung bleeds and breathing difficulties, due to the excessive exertion demanded of them in the rigorous training and in the race.
90% of the horses in races have deep bleeding stomach ulcers within 8 weeks of starting race preparation.
A study regarding horse racing found that: in the US, 94% of the horses in races have one or more lesions in the stomach lining. However, 100% of the horses who had raced within the 2 months prior to the study, had ulcers. When horses continue to race, their ulcers get worse.

Apart from the stress of racing, the major reason for the ulcers is intermittent feeding. Horses are fed only at certain times, so there is nothing to neutralize the stomach acid that damages the stomach lining.

One of the most creative efforts the industry is making to increase the horses speed is a violent surgical procedure called Tubing - a hole larger than a 2 pence piece is surgically cut into a horse's neck, into which a metal breathing tube is then placed. The tube is designed to increase the air intake into the lungs with air drawn through the neck, in part bypassing the nose and mouth. The tube is blocked with mucus from the horse's throat, causing distress.

The industry invests a lot of money on experiments, painful and stressing experiments that are usually done on sick and injured horses. In the UK alone 10 million euro are invested a year in those kind of experiments.

Except for flat races, horses suffer in jump races as well. There are two types of jump racing, hurdles and steeplechases. In hurdles, horses jump lightweight frame 'fences' with brush tops, while in steeplechases horses jump a number of higher, more solid obstacles. Jump races are generally long, tiring events. The hurdles courses are usually around 2800-3200 meters, while steeplechases courses are commonly 3200-3600 meters. The Great Eastern Steeplechase forces horses to run for almost 5 km while jumping 24 fences.

The horses are forced to jump over 10 hurdles in the average race and as many as 20 or more hurdles in the longer races. When horses are bunched up on the approach to a jump, it can make it more difficult to take off accurately and can lead to error or even a 'pile-up. Muscle fatigue, especially in long races, increases the danger of a horse to injure himself when taking a jump. Horses are large, heavy animals and when they fall, they suffer extreme pain, even if there is no serious or long-term damage. Deaths are very often in the industry and they increase every season.

'Pinfiring' is a painful and crule leg operation, carried out to enable horses with damaged limbs to continue taking the knocks and bruises that arise from jumping fences.
The procedure involves inserting red hot needles through the skin to burn the tendons. The idea is that creating a scar tissue tightens the skin around the tendon and so gives additional support. This, it is believed, will help prolong the careers of top horses. The other 'firing' method involves placing an electrically-heated metal plate on the outside of the leg to burn the skin.

When jumping at speed, the force on the lead foreleg as it hits the ground is 1.7 times the body weight of the horse, the force is considerably greater when landing after a jump. Some of the shock of the hooves hitting the ground is absorbed by the spongy bone, which is compressed in the process.
A bone becomes weaker in the course of a race as a result of this micro-crushing. To break a normal cannon bone at the start of a race it takes about 16,000 pounds of force, but the amount of micro-crushing which can take place in a race can reduce this force to about 9,000 pounds.

When a horse breaks a leg or shoulder, the bones may 'explode' into many pieces, making it impossible for a veterinarian to "repair" them.
The cost of restoring a horse to full fitness is expensive, not necessarily successful and usually deemed uneconomic.

Consequently, horses' injuries get worse. Horses that suffer severe injuries and horses failing to win races are sold to slaughterhouses, a more profitable method for breeders than euthanasia.

The long cramped ride to the slaughterhouse without painkillers, in unfit trailers (with low roof) cause immense stress and suffering.

THE BREAKDOWNS

Horses who are enslaved to pull carriages through city streets are usually "breakdowns" from racing tracks. Standard breeds are often trained to race by being tethered to the back of a truck that drives increasingly faster, so carriage horse operators consider these horses "street chevy". But standard breeds are much smaller and lighter than traditional "draft horses" and are not accustomed to pulling heavy loads.

Carriage horses are exposed to bitter cold and scorching heat. Horses work in temperature of nine degrees Fahrenheit, well below freezing.
In the summer, horses suffer from dehydration or heat stress and can die in a few hours. And all year long horses suffer, among cars and trucks, from stress and air pollution. The smoke and exhaust fumes from urban traffic are dangerous for horses. Horses endure enormous lung damage, the same kind of damage you would expect from a heavy smoker.
They also suffer from many accidents and injuries.

Carriage horses are constantly walking and standing on hard asphalt. Lameness and hoof deterioration are inevitable. The problems are worsened by the inexperience of the gross majority of the owners and drivers, who are either incapable of recognizing lameness or are unwilling to pay for medical treatment.

Horses of course fasten with harnesses. Sometimes the straps are so loose that they rub and chafe the horse's skin, or are they so tight that they constantly pinch.

Conditions of carriage horses are not much better when they are off the streets. Breaking in on carriage horse stables have exposed stalls with no hay or other bedding, stall floors covered with urine and manure, poor ventilation in the stables, and horses who had no free access to water. Many stables have stacked floors - like parking garages - with steep ramps leading from one floor to the next. The floors in one stable were so rotten, they often gave way under the weight of the horses, repeatedly causing animals to break their legs.

The "winner" horses are confined in small crate, after a year and a half on the racetracks, for artificial mating.

Some are sent to Korea, USA, Japan, and other countries where racing "standards" are lower.
The millions unwanted, rejected and "failed" horses are sent to become a raw material for meat, pet food, fertilizers, brooms, violin strings, brushes, and glue.
All The "owners" say they love "their" horses. If this is how they treat their loved ones…we are glad they don’t hate them.

The industry is making tremendous efforts to squeeze more and more money over the animals’ broken and deformed body.
Capitalism’s “golden rule” is whoever has the gold makes the rules.
Though animals don’t even know what money is, they are the poorest creatures in the world.
Humans will never voluntarily give up their control over non-human animals.