Category: Uncategorized

Posted in Horse Racing, Horses, Kentucky Derby, Triple Crown, Uncategorized

Racing to Die: Drugs and Inbreeding in Thoroughbred Racing

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

 

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I am a Kentuckian who loves horse racing, who loves the Kentucky Derby , who loves the whole Triple Crown experience. I love horses, all horses but particularly thoroughbreds. I don’t love what has happened to thoroughbred horses in the name of racing and making money.

In the 2015 Kentucky Derby, a horse named Eight Belles broke down and had to be euthanized after the race. After the 2015 Derby, there was a Congressional Hearing in the House of Representatives by the Subcommittee on the State of the Thoroughbred Racing Industry and the Welfare of the Thoroughbred Horse due to Eight Belle’s breakdown. They specifically addressed drugs and inbreeding in the racing industry.  Breakdowns on the track and during or after a race are becoming increasingly common. This subcommitte investigated the Eight Belle’s situation and determined she was inbred to the point that there was no way she could possibly have been a sound horse. Her four times great-grandfather on her sire’s side was her three times great-grandfather on her dam’s side. That particular line of horse was known for their weak ankles even though they were superb race horses. What happened to Eight Belle’s to cause her breakdown? A catastrophic ankle injury. There are thousands of race horses out there with the same blood line as Eight Belles or very similar.

Inbreeding is not the only problem. Performance-enhancing drugs is the other leg of this issue. Race horses bleed from their lungs and suffer inflammation and pain. Are they rested or retired? No. They are raced on drugs. Lasix for the bleeding in the lungs.   Anti-inflammatory drugs and pain medications for the other problems. Bottom line? Even if a race horse is hurting, he or she is out there on that track running because they are shot up with drugs and do not feel the pain. It’s called doping.

Different race tracks have different rules regarding drugging horses. Churchill Downs, where the Kentucky Derby is run, follows Kentucky rules, and Kentucky is known as the most lenient state. Horses entered in the Derby can be doped with Lasix for bleeding in the lungs, corticosteroids for pain and inflammation, and phenylbutazone for inflammation. This writer’s opinion is that these drugs should not be allowed to be used during a race on these horses. Even more, horses that require the use of these drugs should not ever be bred as that is only exponentially extending the problem to future generations. The main issue? Virtually all race horses are doped with these drugs in this day and time. In Europe, however, horses run clean, breakdown less, and are generally healthier.

Back to the inbreeding issue. It isn’t simple. Inbreeding and linebreeding are used in order to reproduce desirable characteristics in horses, but it also reproduces undesirable characteristics such as in the case of Eight Belles. To this writer, there seems to be little solution other than to outcross. Outcrossing is breeding unrelated horses through four generations. It is risky and breeders certainly have to do a great deal of research and homework. Outcrossing can bring new blood into a line and make it stronger but it takes work and study on the part of the breeder.

If something isn’t done, and fast, about the drug and inbreeding issues, horse racing as we know it is going to die. Average starts per horse dropped from 1975 to 2007 by 62%. Around 10 starts in 1975 to a little over 6 starts in 2007. Compare that to the starts by the great horse Citation. He was born in 1945 from a primarily outcrossed European breeding and started 45 times with 32 victories. He is considered perhaps third on the list of the greatest race horses that ever lived, behind Man ‘O War and Secretariat.

Could most thoroughbred race horses today run 45 races? I will let you draw your own conclusions. I hope for a National organization to regulate horse racing and the treatment of race horses that standardizes the laws across all 50 states.

Posted in Appalachia, Drug abuse, Eastern Kentucky, Poverty, Uncategorized

Appalachian Roots

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

I am from Appalachia, central Appalchia to be exact. Northeastern Kentucky to be even more exact. My roots have a bit of a split personality. Part Appalachian, part Swedish! What a combination which probably accounts for my split personality and eccentric leanings. Someday, I will write about my Swedish family. Now I want to write about Appalachia. Appalachia breaks my heart.

I have always lived geographically close to Appalachia and spent almost 30 years teaching students who came from the region. I did not grow up deep in the heart of Appalachia but I frequently visited my grandparents and other family who lived in the Central Appalachian region. As I grew up, their culture was my culture, their values were my values, their way of life was my way of life. By the time I was becoming a teenager, Appalachia’s best days were behind it but I didn’t know it. My grandfather had worked hard to insure that his eight children, including my mother, had left the region in order to get an education and seek their fortunes. One had to go elsewhere for an education. There were only two universities reasonably close by and the terrain of the region is geographically isolating.

Poverty was the calling card of the region. My grandfather was a landowner, a successful farmer, and had gas and oil wells on the rich land. When I looked out his front door, I saw acres of corn and tobacco growing and many dairy cattle grazing. He was the exception not the rule. He refused to let his family work in the coal mines, but coal mining was one of the principal industries. Much of the region is not suited for farming as it is too mountainous. Manufacturers did not bring their industries to Eastern Kentucky. There were no good roads.

The people opposed interference from outside the region. They feared that their culture would be taken away, their way of life stolen, their children corrupted. They feared cultural change more than they feared poverty.

My grandparents are gone now but the old farmhouse still stands. Do you know what I see when I look out the door now? Trailer parks. Very poor, hopeless people. Children playing in the dirt yards. Starving dogs surviving on table scraps tied out in the yard. I know enough about the area to know what lies within some of those trailers. Drugs. Heroin. Pain pills. In that county, there is little economic activity with around a 33% unemployment rate. Farming is gone. The gas and oil wells still pump but the owners of the mineral rights live far away or the mineral rights were unfortunately sold along with the land. The people lost their way of life but not to manufacturers or education. They lost it to drugs and poverty.

Appalachia breaks my heart. #appalachia #poverty #drug abuse

Watch this space for much more on Appalachia.

 

 

Posted in Music, Uncategorized

Can Music Heal Anxiety?

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

Do you remember the song “American Pie” by Don McLean? As a child of the 70s, it has always been part of the background of my life and the lives of my compatriots. I reference that song because I am a believer in the power of music as a healing force in our lives and it has two very powerful lines in it. We all have “our” music. Many children of the 60s and 70s are into classic rock. The 80s were pop with the emergence of rap and hair metal. The 90s – a plethora of genres including a new sound in rock along with pop, metal, and pop, and so on. Country has always been with us though a new sound emerged in country pop.

When I listen to my music, I am relaxed and happy. Science tells us why. Studies have shown that the sensory pathways along which music travels in the brain compete, for example, with the pain pathways and win. Music can reduce pain. When feeling anxious, studies show that if you listen to music that makes you feel the way you want to feel, it helps you feel that way. So listen to happy music if you want to reduce your anxiety. Music has proven therepeutic in all sorts of clinical settings.

In “American Pie,” there are the lines, “do you believe in rock and roll, can music save your mortal soul.” My answer to both questions is a resounding yes! At the very least, your music can soothe your soul and your anxiety.