Kids Love Horses, Kids Love Dogs

by Lisa Dubé Forman

I recently reviewed several American Kennel Club (AKC) dog registration statistics and their precipitous backsliding over recent decades. I know this does not come as a surprise to anyone since we have been reading about this for years now with many fanciers postulating reasons why. One popular explanation is that economics have played a huge role in the decline of registrations.

I’d like to point out a contradiction, a logical incompatibility with this belief that to my knowledge has not been addressed. If economics were to blame then why is it that even during our flourishing economic years, the decline in registration of dogs continued? The statistics set forth in AKC’s Annual Reports, Chairman’s Reports, and Board minutes show that registrations peaked at approximately 1.5 million in 1992.

According to Forbes Magazine, Dan Ackman wrote in his 2004 piece, President’s and Prosperity, “During Bill Clinton’s years in office, the United States experienced the longest period of economic expansion on record, created 23 million new jobs and saw income gains shared across the income spectrum.” Notably, Clinton’s two terms in office spanned 1993-2001. Ackman continued, “The Forbes rankings take into account a variety of economic factors (GDP growth, per capita income growth, employment gains, unemployment rate reduction, inflation reduction and federal deficit reduction) and are a good gauge for how average Americans fared during each president’s tenure in office. The rankings are not based on a specific economic theory, but instead simply combine data that experts recognize as indicators of a healthy economy.”

If one looks at the numbers, dog registrations began their precipitous descent during our most prosperous of economic times and have continued through to this decade with AKC’s last published figures being 2010 total registrations of approximately 563,000. This is almost one-third of what it was in 1992 and is a HUGE gulf. I have a multifold explanation why AKC and subsequently our sport has suffered such a registration downfall.

I love horse racing and this past weekend I enjoyed the highlight of all horse racing, The Breeders Cup World Championships, which were held at Santa Anita Park in California. This is a two-day event with thoroughbred race horses and owners from every part of the world in attendance. Today, across our country, the horse racing industry and sport has suffered significant declines in attendance records over a number of decades. The industry has been plagued by scandal and in New York State, for example, the government has seized control of the New York Racing Association (NYRA) Board which operates three of the country’s most well-known race tracks. According to New York Times reporter Joe Drape, the racing association is in disarray after a series of equine deaths at its racetracks, missteps by management and formal investigations into both. Additionally, race tracks across the country are competing against and have finally had to join up with casinos and their multitudes of video slot machines to survive. In his article, Drape writes that at Aqueduct Race track there has been a dramatic spike in the number of breakdowns and fatalities of horses, double the national rate for thoroughbred racing.

However, this track is not alone in experiencing devastating breakdowns and fatalities. Drape writes that the racing industry today is facing Congressional investigations to seriously reform racing policies regarding ‘drug use’ at tracks. In many cases, records have shown that horses have been injected with multiple anti-inflammatories and painkillers in the days and weeks before they raced in pursuit of purses.

The public has watched the devastation unfold as unsound, beautiful thoroughbreds have broken down, fracturing their bones on live television, only to be carted away in a horse ambulance and euthanized. This can be a sickening sight, these grand animals running their hearts out, some will continue to run no matter the injury, and it is seared into a viewer’s memory. Horse racing once was considered a family spectator’s sport, one in which families could spend the day together at the race track watching the horses run. However, years of incidences, on live television or while at the rail, of parents and their children looking on in horror as horses’ fetlocks were snapping have taken an enormous toll. Today, this is no longer considered a family spectators sport. Hence, just one reason for the significant loss in revenue and fans. Sound familiar? Though we do not have fatalities during our events, we too have lost the support, morally and financially, of the public due to different reasons but notably even during healthy economic times. This loss trickles down to registrations and has an impact on our sport’s registry, the AKC.

However, I referenced the Breeders Cup Organization for one very important reason. The anti-drug forces within the organization have been successful and as a result, Lasix drugs, which have been in widespread use since the 1970s, are banned from all Breeders’ Cup events in 2013. Besides this Boards stated reasons for agreeing to such a ban, I feel this organization has finally woken up and is effectively attempting to rebrand the sport and resell it to disgusted, former racing fans hoping to lure them back again. Veterinary checks are also constant now with veterinarians observing the horses through post parades and gate loading. In fact, a colt was scratched prior to loading into the gate during the Breeder’s Cup Juvenile Sprint and was unsaddled because a veterinarian declared the horse unsound.

The lesson of the story: our sport needs a total revamping to turn it around so we can halt the continuing moral and financial decline, the egregious loss of our children’s participation, and once more, rebrand purebred dog conformation events as a family spectator sport because kids love horses and kids love dogs.

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Posted by admin on Nov 6 2012. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.