A MUST read. Not only a heart-wrenching story of Baby (sob!) but also a very in-depth look at the racing industry itself and what happens to these beautiful, graceful and loving animals during their lifetimes. Lifetimes that are cut way too short.
As a life long horse lover I had often heard about the ugly side of horse racing and have never gone to track because of that - but to have it in front of your face in print made me all the more aware of the situation.
This book does have a golden side too though. Because of Baby, the author opened up her life and set out to right as many of the wrongs as she could - and she has done some very good things for these beautiful animals. Go to her website and see what the organization is working on today. http://www.savingbaby.org/
Below find facts about the industry and also a Q & A by the author.
A book really worth your time to read. Also, a portion of the proceeds go to fund the rescue of these horses.
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SAVING BABY
How One Woman’s Love for a Racehorse Led Her to Redemption
BY Jo Anne Normile and Lawrence Lindner
Autobiography/Memoir * Pets/Horses
ISBN: 1-250-061195
$25.99 * 320 pages
Publication Date: October 21, 2014
SAVING BABY: How One Woman’s Love for a Racehorse Led to Her Redemption by Jo Anne Normile and Lawrence Lindner is the remarkable story of how a woman’s special bond with a Thoroughbred led her to establish the most successful horse rescue organization in the country. It is also a revealing look at the hidden underbelly of the glamorous world of horse racing that few people ever see.
More than 20 years ago, Saving Baby president Jo Anne Normile fell in love with a Thoroughbred that happened to be born on her farm. She was not supposed to keep the horse, a beautiful, exuberant bay with only a few white hairs on his forehead. He belonged to a breeder who lived somewhere else. But the breeder said she could have the foal, whom she nicknamed Baby, as long as she raced him. He insisted on that arrangement because every time Baby won a race, he would receive some of the purse.
Jo Anne didn’t know anything about racing when she sent Baby on the track. But by degrees, she learned what a brutal industry it is for horses. She finally did an about-face and began rescuing horses from the track rather than trying to race them.
Originally a successful self-published book, it received critical acclaim and was named a 2013 Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews. Now, SAVING BABY is being published in a new hardcover edition by St. Martin’s Press in October.
In SAVING BABY, written with co-author Lawrence Lindner, Jo Anne Normile tells her life-changing story of love, regret, and redemption. It is a passionate, heartwarming animal story, as well as a revealing look at the world of horse racing.
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About racehorses…
· An
estimated 15,000 to 20,000
Thoroughbred racehorses are sent to slaughter annually, then sold as
meat in France, Belgium, Canada, Japan, and other countries where
horsemeat is considered food for people.
· Horses
are often slaughtered when
they are too injured or simply too slow to compete successfully. Even a
number of horses seen on televised high-stakes races like the Kentucky
Derby drop down in the ranks until they meet an untimely end in a
slaughterhouse.
· Racehorses
are routinely sold
straight from the track to kill buyers who get them transported to
slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico for a few hundred dollars – the
price of a custom-made hat that some women wear just once to a fancy
race. There’s a saying in the racing industry: “Stable
to table in 7 days.”
· Dozens
of horses die each week
while racing or during training. Sometimes it’s injuries; sometimes
it’s the heat or a heart attack; sometimes their legs literally snap off
at the knees while they’re running up to 35 miles an hour.
· Racehorses
are usually forced
to stand alone in their stalls for up to 23 hours a day as part of a
strict training regimen; on their own, they are social, herd-bound
animals who spend up to 18 hours daily grazing and keeping each other
company.
· Mares
who give birth to expensive
Thoroughbreds are generally forced to become pregnant again within 7 to
10 days, and their prized newborn foals are fed by wet-nurse horses,
whose own newborn foals are sometimes killed, or simply left to die on
the floor of a stable, so that the future racehorse
can receive enough food while its mother is shipped off to a stud farm.
· Thoroughbreds
are routinely injected
with all manner of steroids and other drugs to mask pain and enhance
performance, but they’re often forced to run in agony despite the
medication administered. Imagine a quarterback having to throw despite a
severely disabled shoulder or a tennis player having
to run back and forth across the court with a torn meniscus.
· Because
racehorses are shot up
with drugs, we are selling tainted horsemeat to other countries. Some
of the drugs found in horsemeat have been identified as potential human
carcinogens.
· Jockeys whip horses (legally)
and some shock them with hidden buzzers (illegally) to make them run faster.
· Thoroughbreds
are bred to be fast
without regard for their physical soundness. Their hulking bodies are
being bred ever more muscled to be carried on spindly legs whose ankles
and feet are becoming ever weaker.
· Horses
are generally forced to
start racing before they are 2 years old – still young “children.” A
horse does not reach adulthood until age 5 – the point by which most
Thoroughbreds are dead from racing or slaughtered even though a horse’s
natural lifespan is 20 to 30 years.
· Racing
is not a sport. It’s a
$40 billion gambling industry. True sports sustain themselves with
spectators willing to pay to see the event. Racing would not exist
without the gambling component.
· There
is no national racing commissioner,
as there is for football and other sports to make sure players adhere
to the rules. Rules in racing amount to suggestions that differ from
track to track around the country. Enforcement is lax, and that’s legal.
Imagine a casino where the house could get away
with using marked cards or loaded dice.
· Racing
is the only unregulated
gambling industry. If, say, a trainer gets caught having given a
winning horse a performance-enhancing drug that is “not allowed,” the
horse is disqualified, but those who bet on the horse that came in
second do not now receive their rightful share of the
winnings. The incident “goes away.”
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Q&A with Jo Anne Normile, author of Saving Baby
How would you characterize this book?
I consider it a love story. It is my homage to Baby, who came into my life unexpectedly but turned out to be the horse of
my dreams, the horse who changed my life.
Is that why you wrote it, to express your love for him?
Anything I said about Baby would show my love for him. But actually, I wrote it out of frustration.
What do you mean?
I was trying to change horseracing, to change the way people think of it. There’s much wrong in the industry with drugging
horses and putting them through other abuses, which I learned when I had Baby
at the track, and I kept trying to change the system through
traditional channels. I would write letters and then e-mails to those in
the top echelons of racing, I met with government
officials, submitted materials to a watershed Congressional hearing in
Washington. I even took a track to court for how it treated my horse and
came away with a sum I found meaningful. But the status quo in racing
has remained the same, with horses’ well-being
too often sacrificed for the bottom line. I couldn’t deal with the
frustration anymore, so I decided to take the truth directly to the
public – to change the industry from without because I wasn’t able to
effect change from within.
How do you want to change people’s perception of racing?
Racing
is seen as a rich man’s pastime, as a combination of beauty and brawn.
The well-heeled owner holds the shiny trophy
while the Thoroughbred, gleaming and sinewy, is covered with a blanket
of red roses. I know the allure all too well. When I used to stand at
the rail while the horses trained, the ground literally shook as they
ran by, a breeze stirring up and hooves sounding
like strengthening thunder as they came closer. It mesmerized me. It’s
hard not to be moved when the earth literally trembles.
But
the reality is that the racing industry treats horses like dice or
decks of cards. When they are used up, they are discarded,
treated as harshly as you can imagine. Even during their racing careers
they are generally thought of as investments rather than sentient
beings.
Many
people have dogs or cats, and it’s easy for them to understand that
each one has his or her own personality, his own
likes and dislikes, his own quirks. They have no trouble getting the
concept of falling in love with a particular house pet. But what many
don’t realize is that it’s the exact same thing with horses. Each one is
unique. Each one knows what it’s like to love
and feel loved, to bond. Horses are extremely intelligent, too. They
have extraordinary memories and an extraordinary capacity for learning.
So for them to be treated like investments – inanimate objects to be bet
on rather than the thinking, feeling creatures
they are – makes their plight unimaginably difficult. They are fully
aware of what they are being put through.
But isn’t racing a sport? Don’t the horses like to run? You keep calling horseracing an industry.
Horseracing
is no more a sport than greyhound dog racing, or cock fighting. It is a
$40 billion gambling industry. And money
and animals never mix. People may sometimes win, but the animal always
loses. Furthermore, horses like to run only the way dogs do. If you see
a horse out in a pasture, he might run if he was just let out or
something startled him, graze a bit, stand still
for a while, then maybe scratch the back of a fellow horse with his
teeth. He would never choose to run around as fast as he could in a
circle. He has no concept of a finish line, or of competing to reach
it.
What do you hope to accomplish with this book?
Well, first, I want people to fall in love with Baby
the way I did, to inform them about the kind of animal a horse really
is so they can understand at a gut level why it is wrong to mistreat
horses at the track. This is a true story. It happened, and it is still
happening to many, many other horses, and I am so frustrated that people
aren’t aware. They tune in to watch a race
like the Kentucky Derby, and they have Derby parties to celebrate the
horses. And the animals are gleaming; they are magnificently beautiful.
But
people need to see the other side, the hidden side of the backstretch
that racing keeps from them – not just from the
public in general but also from the bettors. Would you walk into a
casino if you knew the cards were marked and the dice were loaded? No,
you would not. The casino would get a reputation and lose all its
business. Well, along with horses being abused, people
are betting on what amount to fixed races. No one in the grandstand
knows which horse has a nerve to his foot severed so he won’t feel an
injury and will be able to run faster. No one knows which horses have
been given illegal performance enhancers or even
legal drugs – except people on the backstretch who ordered those drugs,
and who are also allowed to bet. The bettor in the stands has to be
told whether the horse is wearing blinkers, but if he has received 17
injections within a week of a race, that’s not
disclosed. It’s hard to know that racing operates like this and not
feel angry. These abuses are not allowed anywhere in the UK or other
European countries, South Africa, Japan, Hong Kong, Dubai and many other
places where horses race. And every time I hear
about them and know that the industry has gotten away with it, I feel
they’re abusing Baby all over again.
But can reading a book help to change an industry?
Absolutely. I don’t think people in the main mean harm. I think they simply don’t know. But if even a few people read it,
and they can change a few more people’s minds, and save
a few more horses…well, that builds to a groundswell. We have a
compassionate society, and we’re on the threshold of a decision. Do we
continue to exploit horses or any animal for financial gain? Or are
we going to make a change, view things in a new light? Once people are
aware, it will be easy for them to go where their conscience leads them,
like mine did. Together we can make it happen.