Some very rare good news has come to animal advocates in the United States. A bill signed into law in late December 2020 -- the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) -- has made blood doping in horse racing illegal. This change will result in fewer injuries and fatalities in a horribly cruel event. However, the "sport" shouldn't even exist. Animals do not exist to entertain us or for us to bet on; they should be treated with respect.
Sign the petition if you want to see the U.S. ban horse racing altogether!
In 2020 alone, there were hundreds of horse racing injuries and deaths. Many times those injuries and premature deaths come from horses being given drugs to enhance performance, or to run with injuries they already sustained and desperately need to recover from. Another reason for the injuries is blood doping, which is injecting oxygenated blood into an animal before a race to improve performance. The practice raises the risk of serious health complications like blood clotting and 30 people were indicted on charges of running horse blood doping rings.
A whole industry exists around pushing these horses to their limits and beyond, but it has to stop. The horses involved have no choice in the matter. They are bred, trained, and raced into the ground and it's wrong. The fact that a new law was needed to try to curb rampant abuse in the industry shows how little the people involved in horse racing actually care about the animals.
The HISA does make some industry standards for animal welfare around medications used, blood doping and race track safety. So while the passage of the HISA is a start, it doesn't go nearly far enough to protect the innocent animals involved in horse racing. We need to end the entire industry.
Sign the petition to ban the industry entirely.
