By Bill Finley
The mainstream, non-industry media, has been heavily critical of Santa Anita and racing in general since horses started breaking down at the Southern California in numbers that were well beyond the norm. So it should have come as no surprise when Thursday's Los Angeles Times featured an editorial from its editorial board with the headline “Santa Anita should stop racing until it knows why horses are dying.”
The editorial board concluded: “Given that unexplained increase, how is it possible that racing is still going on at Santa Anita? It seems obvious that until Santa Anita officials and all the relevant experts have the information they need to figure out the cause of the deaths, horses should not be racing there.”
In another sentence that the industry might find alarming, the editorial board wrote: “Still, can we really justify hundreds of horse deaths each year to satisfy our need for entertainment? If owners can't show they are very serious about bringing the number down still farther, the public will lose its tolerance for this collateral damage.”
The Los Angeles Times is the largest and most influential newspaper in California. Santa Anita has announced no plan to close, despite pressure to do so not only from the Times but from Senator Diane Feinstein, Congresswoman Judy Chu and PETA.
The story that 23 horses have broken down at santa Anita since the beginning of the meet has been met with widespread and largely unfavorable news coverage. Virtually every television station in Los Angeles has covered the story extensively and it was picked up nationally by, among others, the Today Show and CNN.com. The New York Times and Washington Post have also been following the story.
Santa Anita will hold its biggest card of the year Saturday, one that features the GI Santa Anita Derby and the GI Santa Anita H. The media will no doubt be watching carefully.
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign up for the daily PDF or alerts.
