The carnage around this year's Kentucky Derby has made news all over the world. Yesterday I posted, on the DawnWatch Facebook page , a piece by Kathy Guillermo, which ran in numerous outlets including Yahoo Finance, which told us, "This year, even before the starting bell has rung, the body count has begun. As if this writing, there have been four deaths at the track in just six days."
By the time the race started yesterday CNN let us know (and Andy Umphries let DawnWatch know) that the count had climbed to seven. The Guardian, yesterday, ran a beautiful piece, by Elizabeth Banicki , titled, "What do horses feel at the Kentucky Derby? Mostly fear and pain."
I was most heartened to see today's New York Times coverage by writer Joe Drape, given that paper influences so much media throughout the world. Drape's article is titled, "15-to-1 Shot Prevails In a Race Shadowed By Death and Doubt." (Page A34).
Details of Mage's win (with the horse's name not even in the print edition headline) are given halfway through an article that focuses on the earlier deaths. Drape writes:
"American thoroughbreds are among the finest athletes in the world — collectively they are worth tens of millions — and are the bedrock of a multibillion-dollar agribusiness industry. But the sport has precipitously lost its hold in the United States, where it was once revered as a cornerstone of America’s character.
"Either nature or neglect or abuse sent these athletes collapsing on the racetrack, soon to be hustled into equine vans to meet their grim fates."
DawnWatch can provide a gift link to that article:
Responses from anywhere in the world are appropriate for the New York Times, an internationally distributed paper. The address and tips for submitting is here.
Before I saw Drape's article, my plan was to ask you to please send a quick note to your local paper, which surely covered the Derby and where you are the most likely to be published, calling for an end to this archaic sport. I haven't changed course, even while acknowledging how helpful letters to the New York Times are as well. Please write to your local paper, and write to the NY Times as well if you are moved to. You'll find the email address for your paper by Googling, "Send a letter to the editor (your paper's name)". And please make my day by letting me know you've done that.
If you are stuck, wanting to write but being inexperienced, then please don't hesitate to reach out to me for help, in which case I will ask you to just throw together a few heartfelt lines and send them my way for a quick edit.
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Also in today's media, the Los Angeles Times Weekend Section is all about sushi, and includes, among the mix, an article on bluefin tuna overfishing, and one on plant-based sushi. Angelenos have been sent an alert with links, asking them to weigh in, but letters from anywhere responding to the online article would be welcome and useful.
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And posted this weekend to the DawnWatch Facebook page, not relevant to the Kentucky Derby:
The Huffington Post ran "Scientists Believe The Chickens We Eat Are Being Slaughtered While Conscious: The U.S. poultry industry has a dreadful secret," by Nico Pitney. You can read that here.
Thanks go to Tracey DeMartini for making sure we saw it.
Yours and all animals',
Karen Dawn of DawnWatch
