It is a shame, yes they have raced 2 year olds for over 100 years but the worlds of horses and verterinary medicine have come a long way in those 100 years. Stressing young bones with drugs and extensive exercise before growth is complete is not good for the horse in the long run, I wonder if growth plates are even closed by the time they start training. Hopefully at leat the banning of steroids will help some but I still believe that even adding one more year to mature would make a big difference. I have a 6 year old and to me he is in his prime right now. JMHO.
Members of a Congressional subcommittee looking into practices of the horse racing and breeding industries began a hearing June 19 with warnings that they need to get their house in order to ward off government involvement.
That was the opening message from members of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection under the House Committee on Energy and Commerce during the hearing on “Breeding, Drugs, and Breakdowns: The State of Thoroughbred Horseracing and the Welfare of the Thoroughbred.”
Not unlike other members of the panel who addressed the horse industry participants that provided testimony, Rep. Jan Schakowsky opened the hearing by reiterating the events surrounding the death of Eight Belles following her second-place finish in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I). While tests have shown that the filly was not racing with steroids in her system, Schakowsky traced the filly’s genetic background, citing examples of fragility within the family that may have contributed to the tragedy.
Concerning opinions that the day-to-day workings of the horse industry should not fall under Congressional scrutiny, Schakowsky and others cited the 1978 Interstate Horse Racing Act passed by Congress that allows legal simulcasting and wagering, the source of an estimated 90% of all annual wagers now in North America.
“Unlike every other professional and amateur sport, horse racing lacks any national regulatory authority that can promulgate uniform rules and regulations,” Schakowsky said. “What is going on here? What is happening to the Sport of Kings? Horse racing remains a confusing patchwork of different regulations from state to state. One of the central questions the subcommittee wants to explore is: Does horseracing need a central governing authority? Is the racing industry truly capable of making reforms on its own within the current regulatory framework?”
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Conspicuously absent among the scheduled witnesses was trainer Rick Dutrow, who had attracted considerable publicity for his comments that Big Brown, winner of the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) and Preakness Stakes (gr. I), had received steroids for those two races but not before his last-place finish in the Belmont Stakes (gr. I).