Breakdown at the Racetrack

Ten horses had to be put down at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto in the fall of 2024, a horrific number of catastrophic breakdowns blamed on bad weather and inadequate track maintenance. For The Local, Nicholas Hune-Brown reports on the racing industry in Ontario, where proponents maintain horses receive excellent care, and critics say that the sport of kings is anachronistic and must come to an end.

A series of breakdowns is the worst thing that can happen on a track. “There’s nothing more devastating,” says veteran trainer Catherine Day Phillips. “It’s terrifying. It’s scary to go back out after that’s happened.” The deaths, the AGCO wrote in an official ruling on Nov. 30, were “a threat to the long-term sustainability of the industry.” Online and at the track, there were calls to shut things down for the season.

Following the Woodbine news from his farm near Cobourg, Ont., Colin Davis just felt nauseous. The 42-year-old is a relatively young breeder, the owner of Apricot Valley Thoroughbreds. He’s a big guy from the country who isn’t the most emotional person in the world, but something about horses just gets to him. The first time he saw one of his horses race, he says, there were tears in his eyes. “These are the babies you raise,” he said. “We know all the little quirks about our horses. So when you sell them at auction and you don’t see them for a while, and then they pop up at the track, and you see how grown up they are, it’s just amazing.” Davis knows all of the time and emotion and money that goes into bringing a horse from birth to the moment it can actually compete. And then for that horse to go down due to “something as simple as track maintenance, with no straightforward responses from management? It makes you want to throw up,” he said.