Horse Racing Has No Place in Massachusetts

To the Editor:

I want to applaud Victoria Kelleher’s advocacy and reasoning against a “Kentucky Derby Day” in Swampscott. (“Let’s leave horse racing in the past,” April 24, 2025).

Encouraging residents and their families to attend a broadcast of an unwholesome competition that camouflages cruelty with parasols and other finery runs counter to the kindness toward animals we profess to teach our children. And, gathering the community to watch horse racing reinforces our tolerance for events that blithely permit, in the name of human entertainment and satisfaction, violation of our Animal Cruelty Law:

“Whoever overdrives, . . . overworks, tortures, torments, deprives of necessary sustenance, cruelly beats, mutilates or kills an animal . . . ; and whoever uses in a cruel or inhuman manner in a race, game, or contest, or in training therefor . . . and whoever . . . inflicts unnecessary cruelty upon it, or unnecessarily fails to provide it with proper food, drink, shelter, sanitary environment, [or] . . . cruelly drives or works it when unfit for labor . . . shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than 7 years in state prison or imprisonment in the house of correction for not more than 2 1/2 years or by a fine of not more than $5,000 or by both fine and imprisonment.”

In 2008, responding to a wealth of information offered by myriad animal protection organizations regarding the cruelty involved in greyhound racing, the citizens of Massachusetts voted to ban the practice entirely. Horse racing is just as inhumane and deserves to be eradicated.

Two bills now in the state legislature seek, in different ways, to finally put an end to horse racing in the Commonwealth. S.280, “An Act to Protect Horses,” promotes an end to all horse racing, both thoroughbred and harness, though with an unfortunate exception for the current licensee of harness racing in Plainville. H.356, "An Act Concerning Horse Racing and Simulcasting Within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” hopes to prevent any new thoroughbred racing or simulcast facilities from being constructed without major oversight by local governments, including public ballot. Several such facilities have already been quashed in ten municipalities, but by unwieldy, drawn out grassroots efforts.

Please offer your testimony, either orally or written, to the legislature in support of these bills, which are waiting for a hearing, likely in early May, in the Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure.

Sincerely,

Deb Newman, Esq.

President, Speak Up For Animals, Inc.

Swampscott