When a horse goes down in the middle of the track and a team rushes out with a black or blue tarp to block our view, it’s almost a sure sign all hope is lost.
In all likelihood, the horse is about to be euthanized.
We see the heartbreaking images of a number of these beautiful animals collapsing on racetracks, the jockeys falling alongside them or being tossed into the air, in “Broken Horses,” a sobering and straightforward documentary from FX’s “The New York Times Presents” series. With Times reporters Joe Drape, Melissa Hoppert, Rachel Abrams and Liz Day spearheading the investigation and a number of respected trainers offering valuable insights, “Broken Horses” eschews sensationalism and stylized visuals in favor of an old-fashioned, journalistically sound approach to answering one key question:
Why are so many horses dying?
The answer, as you might expect, has to do with money. With purses for major races increasing over the years and breeding fees escalating into the millions, the stakes are literally higher than ever before, and unfortunately, a small minority of trainers and owners (with the cooperation of certain veterinarians) are all too willing to risk the health and well-being of their horses if it means getting them back on the track to race — until they can race no more.
As the doc reminds us, there’s no denying the glorious spectacle and generational traditions and pure adrenaline rush of the Kentucky Derby and other high-profile races; hence the classic description of the Derby as “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports.” But all that pageantry was tempered in 2023, when a total of 12 horses died during the Spring Meet at Churchill Downs. Although horses dying in clusters is, sadly, nothing new in the sport, the spotlight on current tragedies intensified when a Bob Baffert horse, Havnameltdown, suffered a fatal injury during an undercard race at Pimlico Race Course, just hours before another Baffert horse, National Treasure, won the Preakness Stakes on that very same track.
The white-haired, sunglasses-wearing, dapper and enormously successful Baffert declined to be interviewed for the documentary, but he is a dominant figure in this story nonetheless. As the most recognizable figure in the sport, Baffert epitomizes the rise of the so-called “super trainer,” with his horses winning six Kentucky Derbies, eight Preakness Stakes and three Belmont Stakes. Even after Havnameltdown’s death, the horse’s breeder, a small-time horsewoman named Katherine Devall from Lexington, Kentucky, absolves Baffert of any responsibility and says Baffert taking an interest in her horse made her feel “like Cinderella.”
Still, there’s incontrovertible evidence of Baffert horses failing drug tests, most notably in the case of 2021 Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit, who was later disqualified after testing positive for the steroid betamethasone. Baffert was suspended from Churchill Downs for two years, with the ban extended through 2024 when Churchill Downs Inc. released a statement that said in part, “A trainer who is unwilling to accept responsibility for multiple drug test failures in our highest-profile races cannot be trusted to avoid future misconduct.”
“Broken Horses” incorporates a brief history of the sport of kings, with fourth-generation breeder Arthur B. Hancock noting, “They’re smart animals, graceful, beautiful. They’re brave creatures. … America was founded with horses.” They’re also athletes and, just like human athletes, at risk for injuries as they put an intense strain on their bodies.
The difference, of course, is that they’re helpless to communicate exactly how they’re feeling. Says Kentucky Derby-winning trainer Graham Motion: “The horses can’t tell me what’s wrong with them. That’s my job.” There’s no doubt the vast majority of owners and trainers love their horses and want to make sure they’re safe, but with so much cash on the line, a number of less scrupulous figures have used anti-inflammatory, painkilling and blood doping methods.
At times, the proceedings in “Broken Horses” can be a bit dry, with all the solid but hardly scintillating information about regulatory bodies and investigations, and Congress passing an act recognizing a centralized authority — but it’s encouraging to see the fruits of such crackdowns, as when charges were brought against more than two dozen trainers, veterinarians and drug distributors in March 2020. Jason Servis, trainer of the ironically named Maximum Security, was eventually sentenced to four years in prison for his role in a scheme to drug horses to make them faster.
This is what the doping is all about: to make horses faster, to mask the pain they might be feeling from pre-existing injuries. As trainer Arthur Hancock puts it, for the sport to survive, it needs to keep ridding itself of “the thugs and the drugs.”
