WESTWARD HO!
The road less traveled covered more than 3,000 miles, stretching from Central Kentucky through the upper Midwest, to the Great Plains, Wild West and finally to Southern California in time for Wednesday’s opening day of the summer meeting at Del Mar. There were sights for which words cannot do justice, natural wonders that make this country unique and awesome in its beauty.
And, oh yes, there were horses nearly everywhere the highways and backroads took us on this weeklong Westward trek.
There were no horse races, though we did pass by several "dark" racetracks, including Indiana Downs southeast of Indianapolis in the Hoosier State, Metra Park in Billings, Montana, and Wyoming Downs in rustic Evanston, Wyoming. But horses were everywhere, or so it seemed.
There was a horse show in Wisconsin, trail riders in Minnesota, and dude ranches in South Dakota. Rodeos in small-town Wyoming appeared to be as commonplace as little league baseball in the suburbs of most American cities. Real-life cowboys still use their horses to check fence lines under the Big Sky of Montana.
Horses remain an unmistakable and unique part of the fabric of American life, not just in the West but throughout the United States. But this trip West served as a reminder of how important the horse is to our society — past and present.
The Thoroughbred is just one thread in that colorful fabric. Yet it’s an important thread, providing entertainment and sport and competition at the highest level.
The Paulick Report recognizes that the horse industry is a business — a massive one that, according to the American Horse Council, produces a $102 billion economic impact annually and provides for 1.4 million jobs. The AHC’’s economic impact study estimates there are 9.2 million horses in the United States.
In all the annual numbers that we see in our slice of the business, Thoroughbred racing and breeding ($15 billion wagered, $1 billion in purses, another $1 billion in auction receipts), it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of what really drives the industry: the horse, and the fascination and love people hold for this majestic creature.
By Ray Paulick
Copyright ©2008, The Paulick Report
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Tags: American Horse Council, Horse Racing, Paulick Report, Ray Paulick
July 15th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
“Horses remain an unmistakable and unique part of the fabric of American life, not just in the West but throughout the United States. But this trip West served as a reminder of how important the horse is to our society — past and present. ” Yes! And that’s in part the reason we memorialize the fallen racehorses upon whose back the racing industry stands. Thank you for the reminder, Ray, of the importance and beauty of our horses. It’s truly refreshing to hear a journalist within the industry take the time to write something that so honors the horse, as you do in “Westward Ho!” ~Connie
July 16th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
That was a nicely written piece. It’s nice to know someone realizes that while horse racing may be a “business” and an “industry”, without the horses, there’s nothing.