By Matt Thacker
When the celebrities flock to Louisville for the Kentucky Derby on May 6, one star will be notably absent.
Actress Pamela Anderson announced in February that she won’t be attending this year’s Derby because she believes it supports cruelty toward animals.
“It makes me want to avoid Kentucky altogether, which is sad because there are so many great people there,” Anderson said in a statement from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Anderson is also known for her outspoken opposition to Kentucky Fried Chicken’s treatment of the chickens they sell. “Like most people, I don’t want to support cruelty to animals, whether it’s forcing horses to race for our amusement or scalding chickens alive for our plate.”
Her statement was partially an attack on Yum! Brand foods. The parent company of Kentucky Fried Chicken will sponsor the Derby this year for the first time. It was also a denouncement of the horse racing industry. Anderson’s opinion is shared by PETA.
“These horses are just pawns in a multi-million dollar business that is fraught with cruelty and drug abuse,” said a PETA spokeswoman. She said the horses start racing even before their skeletal systems are fully developed and that they are drugged prior to race to help them fight the pain.
She said part of the problem is that the people who make the regulations on the horse racing industry also profit from it, but Churchill Downs Communications Manager Josh Abner said the horses are natural runners and are not mistreated.
“Thoroughbreds have been bred for over 300 years. – This is what is in their nature to do, to run, and they’re great athletes and they’re trained that way,” Abner said.
He said that programs like the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation were created to find good homes for former race horses rather than having them slaughtered.
Nancy Davis, interim chief state veterinarian for the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority, said that all horses are inspected in their own stalls prior to each race.
She said the inspectors look for any abnormal pathologies in the leg, pain, heat or swelling and that they keep a computer record of each horse so that they can track any changes in its health.
“We are making a concerted effort to make it as safe as possible,” she said. “Every sport has some risk in it, whether it involves animals or humans – so we continue to work to make it safer for the horses and the jockeys.”
She also said that the new polytrack has made horse racing much safer on tracks where it has been installed, and she said that Churchill Downs is considering installing the surface.
For PETA, the change may not be enough. The group maintains that any sport that profits from using animals is unethical. They encourage people to lobby against building new tracks, encourage legislators to reform existing laws regarding racing and boycott existing race tracks.
So far, the movement doesn’t appear to have hurt the race’s fan base. A record crowd of more than 156,000 people was in Churchill Downs last year to watch the Derby.
