Thoroughbred Retirement Network of Louisiana - 2.0

11/13/2025

Saw this quote on Instagram and it really resonates.

11/12/2025

11/11/2025

Well - once again, the stream of thoroughbreds ending up in feedlots has now become a flood. Why are there only a few of us helping them? Where is the industry to help them? TAA, The Jockey Club, TCA - where are you when these horses need you the most? The “kill buyer extortion” excuse just doesn’t cut it anymore. You’re not fooling anyone. If breeders and owners can spend hundreds of thousands or even millions for thoroughbreds at high end sales, they can certainly spend $1500 to save their lives after these horses have earned them money. When will the industry put the horses’ wellbeing first? You’d think each horse would be treated royally as there would be no industry without them.

11/09/2025

We can’t wait to meet them! ❤️

11/08/2025

These two boys are headed to quarantine then on to us! We are happy to be able to help them! They are now safe and their lives have been spared!

11/07/2025

Just because something has been done a certain way for years, doesn’t mean it’s the right way. Habituation and desensitization to the harm, pain and exploitation of horses has led to complacency and acceptance.

I was recently invited to the racetrack and offered a tour. I went because I didn’t want to just be angry from a distance. I wanted to understand. I didn’t want to dismiss something without seeing it for myself.

What I saw was complicated.

Many of the people there truly believe they’re doing what’s best for their horses. But good intentions don’t erase harm. You can love a horse and still be part of something that hurts them. That’s what makes this so difficult to confront, and so important to name.

I also saw stress, fatigue, fear and behaviours that told a very different story from the one people handling them believed.

Many genuinely saw tension or restlessness as excitement.

They didn’t recognize the signs of discomfort, not because they didn’t care, but because no one ever taught them to see it differently.

You walk through the racing spaces and see walls covered in photos, horses mid-stride, nostrils flared, eyes wide. And once you know what to look for, you can’t unsee it. You can match almost every image to a pain ethogram, and they would score.

When pain expressions are framed and celebrated as proof of achievement, it shows how deeply this culture has learned to see discomfort as success.

A system that hangs discomfort on the wall as a trophy is a system that cannot recognize harm even when it’s right in front of it. And we’re asking the people inside that system to open their eyes to something they’ve been taught to look away from for generations.

That’s why asking for change feels almost impossible.

There’s nothing ethical about breeding thousands of horses each year when so many already stand in kill pens and auction lines. There’s nothing ethical about glamorizing an industry where catastrophic injuries are treated as inevitable.

Because this isn’t just about the horses. It’s about people, people who have built their lives, livelihood, their identities, their sense of worth around this world. Admitting harm means questioning everything they’ve ever known.

The sport itself, the way it exists today, is built on the suffering of horses.

And it cannot be saved when the people inside it can’t see the damage being done. When suggestions for change are dismissed as outsider opinions, nothing moves forward. It’s impossible to heal a system when everyone within it believes it’s fine.

Cognitive dissonance keeps it alive.

It’s easier to defend cruelty than to admit you’ve been complicit in it.

And that’s why change is so hard. Because it asks people to unlearn everything they’ve been rewarded for believing. But this is exactly why naming harm matters and why recognizing stress behaviours and pain expressions matters.

Why we have to keep showing and discussig what others refuse to see.

Because every time someone learns to spot a pain face, or notices tension for what it really is,
a crack forms in the wall of denial that keeps this system standing. And cracks spread.

SO WE KEEP NAMING IT.

We keep pointing to it, even when it seems to fall on deaf ears, because it only takes one person willing to look in the mirror to start change from within.

We keep having these conversations with hope that people begin to see what we see. Because once you do, you can’t unsee it.

11/07/2025

I couldn’t have said it any better…

What is Social Licence to Operate and why is it at risk?

Lately, I’ve seen the phrase Social Licence to Operate popping up more and more, and honestly, it’s something we really need to talk about.

It sounds formal, but it’s actually something very human: public trust.

A Social Licence to Operate means that society gives its approval for an activity to continue, not through laws or paperwork, but through belief that it aligns with their values.

In welfare science, it’s basically how the public decides whether an industry still deserves its place. That acceptance only lasts as long as people believe those animals are treated ethically, fairly, and with genuine care.

For horses, that licence allows us to keep involving them in sport, training, and leisure. But that trust is fragile, and right now, it’s at risk.

Public concern isn’t misplaced, it’s justified.

They see:

• Horses confined to stalls, unable to move or socialise.

• Tight nosebands, spurs, and whips used for “control.”

• Young horses pushed into training before their bodies are ready.

• Photos and videos of tension, fear, and pain shared as “normal.”

• Injuries, breakdowns, and deaths in competition,
often with little accountability.

Images of horses finishing races with blood on their mouths are exactly why the public is questioning us.

These aren’t isolated cases. They’re patterns, and the public is right to question them.

To be honest, I don’t think we deserve a social licence in our current state. We’ve normalised too many practices that put performance, convenience, or appearance ahead of welfare.

So when people ask if I care about “losing the sport,” my answer is this:

I care about the horses, not about protecting systems that continue to fail them.

If losing parts of the industry is what it takes to rebuild something ethical, compassionate, and transparent, that isn’t a loss. That’s progress.

Because if we can’t put welfare at the center, what’s the point?

If the horse world can’t exist without compromising welfare, then maybe it shouldn’t survive as it is.

If the price of keeping our social licence is the horse’s wellbeing, then we don’t deserve it.

11/06/2025

Showcasing thoroughbreds!

11/06/2025

The Bridge is an excellent organization! Please consider supporting them! They do wonderful work and are partners with us.

11/05/2025

11/05/2025