Despite tentative deal, strikers remain on picket line Friday

By Susan Kayne

For Capital Region Independent Media

On a frozen February morning in 2019, I stood at the edge of what was once the iconic Clermont Farm in New York, witnessing the brutal arithmetic of horse racing economics. A dozen dead Thoroughbreds lay piled beside a manure pit, while dozens more struggled to survive on barren winter pastures. Among them, barely able to stand, was a chestnut mare I had known in another life, though I didn’t recognize her then.

Her name was Touching My Toes. On March 13, 2011, I had steadied her first wobbling steps into the world, not as an owner but as a service provider in an industry I would eventually leave behind. Now, watching her fight for survival alongside her companion Time for Angie, the cruel paradox of New York’s racing economy revealed itself in flesh and bone.

The numbers tell a story of staggering contradiction. New York’s horse racing industry receives upwards of a billion dollars every four years for purses, breeding incentives, capital improvements and certain operating costs, funded largely through video lottery terminals at racinos across the state. This corporate welfare system, designed to support the “sport of kings,” flows through a complex network of purses, breeder awards, and stallion bonuses. Touching My Toes alone generated $244,905 in earnings, plus an additional $50,000 in NY Breeder and Stallion Awards. Her friend Angie, California-born but New York-raced, earned $344,830 across both coasts.

Their paths first crossed in 2015 at Belmont Park, in trainer Robert Barbara’s shed row. Born just weeks apart in 2011, they formed a bond that would sustain them through racing’s darkest realities. As “claiming” horses, they lived with the uncertainty of being sold at a moment’s notice, their futures decided by the submission of a claim slip before each race.

For Toes, that uncertainty crystallized on June 22, 2016, in Belmont Park’s fifth race. Breaking first from the gate, she led up the backstretch, her heart carrying her toward what would be her final finish line. At the top of the stretch, under Jose Lezcano’s whip, she gave everything she had left. The whip stung her flesh but couldn’t make her run faster than her failing body would allow. She faltered under the wire in second place, a $12,500 claiming tag hanging over her head.

But she never made it to her new connections. Just beyond the wire, Lezcano dismounted as Toes, unable to bear weight on her left front leg, hobbled into the horse ambulance. Her breakdown voided the claim, but the real void was in her future.

At just five years old, Toes was permanently wounded in service to the desires of others. Diagnostic imaging would later reveal the cruel accumulation of her racing career: soft tissue damage, joint deterioration, a scarred knee, bowed tendon, enlarged ankle, and fused pastern. Had she retired while still sound, she might have enjoyed two decades of dressage, showing, or pleasure riding. Instead, her body bore the cost of racing’s relentless push for profit.

Yet even broken, Toes’ service to the industry wasn’t over. Sent to a breeding farm, she carried a pregnancy on her aching legs, delivering a filly on June 17, 2017. That foal’s whereabouts remains unknown – another thread in racing’s tapestry of disposable lives.

The same industry participants that celebrated these mares’ victories – Toes won races for trainers Mark Hennig, Linda Rice, David Jacobsen, and Robert Barbara – couldn’t ensure their basic survival once their racing days were done. Yet here they stood at Clermont Farm, or barely stood, victims of an industry that discards its athletes when they can no longer generate profit.

In 2011, the year both Toes and Angie were born, New York welcomed 1,225 Thoroughbred foals, part of 22,655 born nationwide. Each was carefully registered, named, trained to trust humans. They learned to accept saddles, respond to commands, give everything they had when asked. The racing industry speaks often of loving these horses, yet that love seems to expire the moment their economic utility does.

This system of subsidized breeding and racing deserves scrutiny, particularly as New York faces pressing social challenges. The billions in video lottery terminal revenue that primarily props up racing purses could fund education, health care, or infrastructure. Instead, it incentivizes a cycle of breeding that produces more horses than the industry can or will support through their non-racing years.

Each Thoroughbred born in New York represents an investment of state funds through various incentive programs. When these horses can no longer race or breed, they face uncertain futures, including neglect and slaughter. The lucky ones find sanctuary. Many do not.

This reality became personal for me the day we rescued Touching My Toes and Time for Angie from Clermont Farm. As I helped load these skeletal mares into the trailer, I didn’t yet know that one of them was the same foal whose first steps I had witnessed eight years earlier. It wasn’t until later, reviewing their documentation at Unbridled Sanctuary, that the connection became clear.

The revelation shattered any remaining illusions about racing’s proclaimed love for its horses. How could an industry that generates billions for themselves, supported by billions in state subsidies, abandon its athletes to starvation? The answer lies not in economics but in ethics.

Today, both mares thrive at Unbridled Sanctuary, having regained over 700 pounds between them. Their bond, forged in the shed rows of Belmont Park and strengthened through the darkest days at Clermont Farm, remains unbroken.

Toes requires special supplements and careful management for her racing injuries, a daily reminder of the cost of pushing horses beyond their limits. Their recovery represents not just physical healing but a reminder of racing’s moral debt – both to the horses whose bodies bear its scars and to the offspring, like Toes’ missing filly, lost in the industry’s churn.

As we face a changing political landscape and increasing scrutiny of public spending, we must question this use of state resources. The video lottery terminal revenue that subsidizes racing could serve many public needs. Instead, it supports a system that treats living, feeling beings as disposable commodities.

This is not just an economic issue but a moral one. These horses, individuated by name and trained to trust, give everything asked of them – as Toes did in her final race, running on pure heart until her body gave out. In return, we owe them more than a system that funds their creation while ignoring their fate.

The next time you hear about racing’s love for horses, remember Touching My Toes and Time for Angie. Remember that final race at Belmont, where a mare ran until she broke. Remember the dozen dead at Clermont Farm. Remember that every Thoroughbred born under New York’s incentive program carries the weight of public money and moral obligation.

I left racing when I could no longer reconcile its claims with its actions. Now, watching these rescued mares in their sanctuary field, I see both indictment and opportunity. We can choose to perpetuate a system of subsidized suffering, or we can demand that public funds serve public good – including the good of the horses we claim to love.

The choice, like the moral obligation, belongs to all of us.

Susan Kayne is the founder and president of Unbridled Sanctuary, an equine rescue on the border of Albany County and Greenville.