"If McClelland really is a "racing fan" and not (a) a gambler or (b) someone working in the industry, he's in a tiny minority. Unless you're one of the above, the whole thing is a pretty sordid and pointless spectacle." Has this person actually been to a top rung track? Most of the people there are not "gamblers". Sure many will make a few $2 bets but they would not be there if not for the beauty.

"In racing, on the other hand, one in 500 races will result in a death." So with 10 races per day and 6 racing days per week that works to one death every two months at any given track. Not bad for something as inherently dangerous as the sport is.

"I know first hand, race people treat horses like shit." And I know first hand that MOST DON'T. On the whole race horses are better cared for that "pleasure" horses that are tended on a part time basis by their "busy" owners.

"For a so-called civilized race, we're pretty damn barbaric in the way we treat other animals." Yeah - WE EAT THEM. I would take the life of a thoroughbred any day over a that of a cow, pig or chicken.

"the bad news, however, is that almost none of them have been properly socialized or trained in a way that allows them to be directly repurposed by pleasure riders." Yeah - a Formula 1 race car makes a lousy daily driver no radio, no doors and no cup holders. GIVE ME A BREAK!

"Maybe someone should whip you into running" Obviously this person has NEVER been around a thoroughbred. You CERTAINLY don't have to do much to make them run. That is what they DO.

"run by rich men who care only for their pockets and not for the animals." A common misconception is that people get rich racing horses. I have yet to to see this happen. Most successful thoroughbred owners are amazingly rich before they buy their first horse. If they truly "care only for their pockets" they would not get in the game in the first place.

"They're not going to wait 5 years to see if they're going to make a pile of profit on the horse." They will have to wait at LEAST 5 years since breeding is where the money is. Unless you can breed a sound racehorse you will end up LOOSING piles of money.

"regulate the use of steroids and NSAIDS a lot more stringently than is apparently now the case." Every race ends with a piss test. Medications are tightly regulated, disqualifications and fines are there for the cheaters.

"We've about reached the limit of what "natural" horses can do: the current racers are too young, overbred and overmedicated" The "current racers" are the same age they have been for over 100 years. Overbreeding is debatable but overmedicated is not. Controls on medication are tighter than they have ever been and the testing continues to get better. The fastest Kentucky Derby ever was over 25 years ago. If we had truly "reached the limit" wouldn't we have seen a faster time than Secretariat's amazing 1:59:40 in 1973?

"Which is because other equine sports aren't predicated on the deaths of their participants."

And neither is horse racing!

And neither is the Rolex Three-Day Event where two horses had to be put down following Cross-Country spills in April. The world is a dangerous place and there will be accidents especially in the pursuit of excellence. It happens. Get over it.

People who don't know squat about horses or racing making BIG statements. That "PETA called on Kentucky racing officials to suspend Saez for whipping the filly in the stretch" demonstrates that they have NO idea how a jockey communicates with a horse to guide it through the maze that is the field in a race.

"In one case, groundskeepers brought a screen onto the track, and held it in front of an injured horse while a veterinarian administered a fatal shot. The carcass was winched into a van and carted off." WOW, HOW DRAMATIC! That describes the SOP for removing a massively injured horse from any racetrack anytime. What alternative is there? Dismemberment?

Polytrack may be an improvement but it has not been in use long enough to give sufficient data to justify an immediate change. Using Turfway Park as an example is not completely accurate since their track needed major work anyway.

Horse racing is a beautiful primal sport that is at least as safe as other forms of racing that will attract a big audience.

State sales taxes are collected at the point of sale. This makes the "tax holiday" scheme much more likely to work. The Federal gas tax is a manufacturer's excise tax collected during production. Reduction of this sort of tax is unlikely to be passed on to the consumer at anywhere near the lousy 60% found in the cited Illinois study.

If $50 over 3 months is a big deal to you your lifestyle and or transportation choices are incorrect. You can barely replace a battery or tire on your car for $50.

Obama is RIGHT about THIS gas tax.

Automatic backups fail with annoying regularity for many reasons. Since they are automatic nobody ever checks them to be sure they are working properly.

I support quite a few networks and one of my first tasks at a new client is to determine who will be responsible for the backups. It tends to be the accountant type person who has the most work to loose in case of system failure.

By making a PERSON responsible I have never had a case of a unusable disk or tape that has been in the machine for 2 years causing a problem with data recovery.

It all has to do with setting up a system that works. Time and again BushCo deliberately set up systems that don't work to facilitate their lying, cheating and looting of our government.