Opportunity Knocks

A subcommittee of the US House of Representatives has set June 19 as the date for a hearing titled, “Breeding, Drugs, and Breakdowns: The State of Thoroughbred Racing and the Welfare of the Thoroughbred Racehorse.”

Not that the game is rigged or anything.

Obviously, some of the members have their axes to grind; and while in general their interest in horse racing — or concern for horses — is limited, they, like everyone else, were no doubt stunned by the breakdown of Eight Belles following the Kentucky Derby.

A hearing like this — spurred by a tragic outcome on the track, titled in such a way to make clear that at least the chairman has already decided what the answer is — could be a blood-letting.

Or it could be an opportunity.

This hearing presents two distinct opportunities for thoroughbred racing, and if the NTRA is smart, it’ll seize both of them.

First, it’s an opportunity for racing to tell its side of the story. There’s an enormous amount of disinformation in the public mind — some of it the natural result of the public’s general disinterest in racing, some of it the purposeful result of campaigns, such as PETA’s, that mixed truths, half-truths, and bogus information.

With this hearing, racing can set the record straight — not in a “sweeping under the rug” way, but in a straightforward manner. Racing has much to answer for, but it also has much that it can point to proudly. Replacing misconceptions with facts will serve the industry well.

What misconceptions? I’d say that, for example, racing is proceeding exactly correctly on artificial surfaces: implementing it in some places and gathering data to determine if it is a better, safer surface or not. I’d say that it’s worth noting that the overwhelming majority of the nine to 10 million horses in America receive virtually no care at all, while most racing thoroughbreds are very well cared for, indeed.

The second, and more important opportunity — about which (and my own lobbyist past) I’d blogged earlier — is for the industry to take the lead. Rather than waiting to be excoriated by Congress — which is sure to happen otherwise — industry leaders need to stop using our fragmented (that is, messy and inefficient, that is, democratic) system as an excuse to avoid making change and instead must use the tools at our disposal: the leverage of the Triple Crown states, the Breeders’ Cup, and the big auctions.

If these few bodies can achieve agreement on the signal issues of the day — medication, surfaces, injury reporting, out-of-competition testing, etc. — they will create a wave of reform that will wash over the entire industry.

If the racing industry takes the opportunity which Congress is presenting to set the record straight and to start the process of real reform, these hearings will be a blessing: a chance to show the world how far we’ve come, and how much farther we intend to go.

If not? Get ready for the blood-letting.