Hello and welcome - again - to the District of Sports podcast. We are relaunching District of Sports and broadening our conversations surrounding the sports teams and sporting events in and around the Capital Beltway and beyond, with episodes to be released semi-monthly, and typically on Thursdays or Fridays.
It’s May, and the time when the three jewels of horse racing’s Triple Crown command our attention. But as the 148th running of the Preakness Stakes at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course takes place May 20, the sport of horse racing has been marred by multiple deaths following the Kentucky Derby on May 6.
A total of eight different horses died at Churchill Downs: Five of them in the days leading up to the Kentucky Derby, two of them on Derby Day, and one after a race a day later. Additionally, four horses were scratched from the field, the most ever for a Kentucky Derby.
Now, as Pimlico and the Preakness take the stage, there’s a lot of attention and still some uncertainty surrounding the health and welfare of these horses.
To try to understand what’s happening in the industry, we’re joined by Wayne Pacelle, the president of D.C.-based non-profit Animal Wellness Action, to get into the issue and any potential ways to make the sport - and horses - safer.
Eight horses are in the Preakness field, including Kentucky Derby winner Mage, who will try to become the 37th horse to win the first two stages of the Triple Crown. He’s the favorite and only horse from the Derby field to race the Preakness.
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