Photo by Kybluegrass of the sculpture of Barbaro, one of the horses who has died in the Kentucky Derby (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Saturday the 3rd of May is Derby Day at Churchill Downs in Louisville. Here come the frivolous cocktails. The pointedly gendered dress code. And one of the crassest annual performances of human domination over the living communities of this planet.

The layers of domination reflected in the spectacle are numerous, and chronically overlooked. In the mix, we find:

The torment of animals for sport. Each year, many hundreds of colts race to their deaths. They run so hard their lungs bleed; diuretics prevent them from breathing out blood. They’re given bisphosphonates that hastily patch up fractures without healing them. Phenylbutazone is used commonly as a pain reliever. Even the horses who escape the fate of running into the ground with compound fractures are running wounded and doped.

A constant role for the killer buyer. As long as breeders exists, so do auctioneers. A trader can bid for the animals in Texas, then sell them into the auction-to-slaughter pipeline. Many thousands of horses—a mix of race and show animals, free-roaming mustangs and former pets—are exported to Canada and Mexico every year, according to agriculture department data. (The EU........

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