In the 150th Kentucky Derby - I bet on Sierra Leone who lost by a nose in a dramatic photo finish. My friend Leslie's horse, Far Bridge, ran in the 11th race and also lost.

Sunday April 5, 2024

It was a thrilling finish: A long-shot named Mystik Dan held off a late charge by Sierra Leone and a colt from Japan named Forever Young on Saturday to win the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby, America's oldest major continuing sporting event, bringing to a close a much-needed casualty-free week of thoroughbred racing.

It was a welcome conclusion for the multibillion-dollar sport imperiled by frequent racing fatalities, reckless breeding, dodgy doping practices and the old-fashioned greed of veterinarians, trainers and owners.

Last year, 12 horses perished at Churchill Downs in the days surrounding the famous race. It only got worse. Two weeks later, a horse trained by one of the sport's most recognized trainers died at Pimlico Race Course. At the historic Saratoga Race Course in New York a few months later, another 13 horses died while racing and training at the sport's signature summer meet, including two that seemed poised to win their races before they broke down near the finish line on nationally televised broadcasts.

Ambulances rumbled onto the track, emergency workers erected privacy screens and, behind them, vets euthanized the horses with injections. All of it put the social acceptability of one of America's oldest sports at risk.

Why do racehorses die? As beautiful as a thoroughbred is in full flight, the legs that seemingly rarely touch the ground are fragile. Ankles the size of a Coke bottle and hooves the size of a crystal ashtray propel a 1,200-pound thoroughbred at speeds up to 35 miles per hour.

Over the past 12 months Melissa Hoppert and Joe Drape analyzed confidential documents and covert recordings made by law enforcement authorities to report on why so many horses, supposedly in peak physical condition, were breaking down. Our investigation - which you can read here, also became a documentary, "The New York Times Presents: Broken Horses," which is streaming on Hulu.

As is so often the case, money is the root of the problem. Trainers push horses too hard, sometimes giving them illegal performance-enhancing drugs. That's because owners know that a signature win will turn their million-dollar investment into a multimillion-dollar A.T.M. in the breeding shed. Do the math: Sierra Leone can be retired tomorrow and enter a life where he mates twice a day, to 155 mares, potentially earning $31 million annually over a breeding career that can last 10 years or more.

Even at the more modest levels of the sport, trainers sometimes rely on illegal drugs. More often, though, the problem is overuse of legal corticosteroid medications that mask pain and allow at-risk thoroughbreds to run until they perish. Among the cluster of 13 deaths at Saratoga, for example, 11 were the result of injuries to a fetlock joint, which can be weakened by injections. Three of the 11 received corticosteroid injections within 30 days of racing. Another three had been declared unsound by veterinarians before their breakdowns, though their owners and trainers still managed to get them into competition.

In short, the humans failed the horses.

Most people involved in the sport have put their horses first, and they were integral in creating the Horse-racing Integrity and Safety Authority, the federal body that now polices the sport. But if that group does not do its job, horse racing could be in trouble. It is at risk of losing its core audiences, including horse lovers, who do not want to see animals die, and gamblers, who now have many other options for betting on sports.

Along with a multibillion-dollar economy, an important part of American history and its soul would be lost.