Why has the Kyiv Racetrack become an equestrian Auschwitz?

“We, as people that have dedicated their lives to this noble animal, are ashamed to look our charges before the eyes. You cannot explain to a horse that this country is living through a trying period, that we all have to tighten our belts, and that there is nothing the track management can do to keep the horses properly fed. The track has for 130 years given Kyivans the unique joy of watching the world’s most beautiful animals. How can we allow it to die like that?” (From a letter of the Kyiv Racetrack workers)

Peruggi is a very smart mare. She has learned to save even on that small daily bundle of hay. She eats a little, then rakes the rest with her hooves and lies on the miniature pad (she has to conserve her strength), then eats the rest. Other racehorses grab their starving rations and then stand forlornly the rest of the day and night on wet or ice-bound concrete, developing dermatitis and arthritis.

This is not a scene from a war movie. This is part of the Kyiv Racetrack and its Thoroughbred trotters’ daily routine. In better days, their ration consisted of hay, oats, siftings, carrots, and salt. Now it is just four kilos of hay, less than a starvation diet. And the barns are empty. There are holes in the floor of many stalls as the poor animals gnaw at the concrete.

Today the capital’s track stables look like a regiment cut off from an army retreating under heavy enemy fire. No command, no logistics. And all because of a Cabinet resolution transferring public property to municipal authorities. Originally subordinated to the Ministry of the Agro- industrial Sector, the racetrack is now run by the City Hall. So who is actually responsible for its maintenance and supplies? The Day phoned Tetiana NERUBATSKA, deputy head of the municipal property department.

The Day: Could we have the manager of the Kyiv Racetrack?

T. N.: No one has been placed in charge so far. We have just finished work on the deed of public-municipal property transfer, and I am not even sure that it has been approved. Sector administration is something else. Perhaps the track will be subordinated to the trade or physical culture and sports department. Anyway, the Kyiv Council has not passed any resolution on the matter

The Day: When did the Cabinet pass its resolution?

T. N.:July 9, 1999.

The Day: Are you serious? Horses are not municipal stock or bookcases. They want to eat.

T. N.: Well, perhaps the city took the racetrack over to make their life better.

Maybe it did. On paper. And in reality?

RACETRACK IS DYING, AND SO ARE THE TROTTERS

Frankly, now nobody cares about the Kyiv Racetrack except jockeys and grooms. And they are treated little better than the horses, being paid 20-30 hryvnias a month, meaning they cannot pay to feed their charges. And no one is sure of what will happen tomorrow.

The track manager told his people there would be no races. Adjourned until further notice. Everybody knows from his own experience that this means the beginning of the end. The same happened in St. Petersburg, Voronezh, and in Lviv. First the races would be put off and then the track would die a quiet death.

A racetrack is a laboratory testing and evaluating saddle horses and trotters. A horse may have an excellent breeding record yet show a mediocre performance. With each horse it is strictly individual, so no expert will undertake to put a full value on a horse single-handedly. After trial runs, depending on the individual performance and other characteristics, a horse’s further destiny is decided: brood sale or stud farm.

Vitaly Vilkhovy, Dubrovka’s Stud Farm manager, says, “Raising a very good racehorse takes very good food, veterinary service, and training. We can cope with the first two factors using our own resources. Yet good speed and coordination can be developed only during races. Without a racetrack we have nowhere to put our horses to the test, and without a selection class assessment we’ll have no right to get breeder status.”

Volodymyr Peresada, head zoologist at Lozovsky Stud Farm in Kharkiv oblast, when asked to comment on the Kyiv track situation, was short and to the point: “A racetrack is the last link in the trotter- breeding chain. When it dies, so does the trotter breed.”

Indeed, breeding racehorses takes years and years.

EXCURSION INTO HISTORY

Nobility was at the cradle of horse-breeding. Currently, many of the world’s rich and famous not only have their own racehorses, trotters and jumpers, but also stud farms. In terms of business, a racehorse is a special commodity. Making it costs a lot, yet it can pay back many times over. Races and horse shows attract huge audiences. Practically everybody is willing to play horses and the stakes do not have to be big. Giliarovsky, once a popular Russian journalist and writer, has a story about a poor high school student who, without having the slightest idea about the races, bet a ruble on a “gray” stallion called Fogabal and won 1,319 rubles, a staggering win in late nineteenth century Moscow.

An advanced pari-mutuel betting network can yield tremendous revenues, enough to finance research centers, special labs, equestrian schools, training facilities, providing jobs for jockeys and veterinarians. In addition, here lies strong incentive for Thorough- and Standardbreds’ owners. In other words, a racetrack does not have to beg the government for subsidies. On the contrary, the ten percent due the government in tax returns spells quite some money.

In 1996, Den’ carried an article in which Pavlo Babutin, Kyiv Racetrack manager, a horseman from a family of generations of equestrians, came up with the idea of pari-mutuel betting in Ukraine. He stressed that, once legalized, such betting would drag all horse-breeding out of its crisis. Regrettably, the bureaucrats upstairs paid no heed and, now we have what we have.

In horse-breeding, saddle horses and trotters constitute two principal trends. In the West, both are accorded equal importance. The best characteristics of horses are polished in the course of serious training and a variety of competitions, developing class. In Ukraine, horse racing is gripped by crisis. In the absence of the basic conditions, experts seek employment elsewhere, although racers are extremely popular with the Ukrainian nouveaux riches (new Ukrainians). Besides, training saddle horses is simpler: just the horse and jockey, while harness racing means handling the horse while sitting in the sulky. And it requires a flat track. Our attitude toward trotters is graphically shown by the situation with the Kyiv Racetrack. Even stud farms specializing in trotters are changing their output structure, aiming to produce just “fine horses” in order to survive.

Most countries with their national horse breeds treat them with jealous care. In Ukraine, it is the Orlov trotter (sire of the Ukrainian saddlebreed). The name belongs to Russian Count Aleksei Orlov (1737-1809), a devout horse breeder who is said to have bought an exceptionally beautiful silver-white stallion from a Turk for 60,000 gold rubles and called him Smetanka {Sour Cream}. At the time the sum paid stunned all Europe.

Smetanka sired a breed on which Count Orlov would work for 33 years and finally his dream came true. The end product was a tall, handsome, and tireless trotter. The horse was said to be “as good under water as under a voivode,” meaning that he would be equally effective in saddle and harness racing. In a word, a general purpose horse. We could well lose the breed, and that would be a tragedy! Good horses have always been highly valued and the situation is the same abroad. A fine racehorse costs much more than the most expensive car.

DUBROVKA TROTTERS — AMONG WORLD’S TOP TWENTY

There are 13 stud farms specializing in trotters in Ukraine, including eight government-run, one collective farm, one joint stock company, and two farmsteads. The one in Dubrovka, founded in the nineteenth century by Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich Romanov, is now recognized as the best CIS stud farm. Its horses brought the largest number of Derby trophies and the farm produced the famous Gildeits, sire of a whole trotter line, and Pion, an outstanding “athlete” and best Orlov stud. In fact, one of two major CIS Orlov trotting prizes bears the stallion’s name. Six Dubrovka trotters were named among the Twentieth Century Top Twenty. All stud farms are most closely connected with racetracks; they lend horses to vie in races to let them show their best characteristics. Multiple winners are singled out as stud horses. Kyiv Racetrack rider Oleksandr Skvortsov has a long record of victories with Dubrovka trotters. Orlov trotters Postupok and Delfin won the central CIS prizes — Pion and Bars — in 1998, in Moscow. Last year the best time among the Orlov three-year-olds was clocked by trotter Uklon (Zaporizhzhia Stud Farm), driven by Volodymyr Kuklin. The surprising fact is that this stud farm has received a medal and diploma of honor not in Ukraine, but in Moscow, presented by the Sodruzhestvo Trotters Association. Skvortsov’s trip to Moscow was financed by his friends as the racetrack did not pay a single kopiyka. And the funny (or very sad) part of the story is that his “unauthorized” trip to the Russian capital caused the racetrack and stud farm management problems with superiors.

EQUESTRIAN AUSCHWITZ AS REFLECTION OF UKRAINIAN SOCIETY

In view of everything stated above one can only marvel at the optimism shown by Ihor HOROSHKO, director general of the Koniarstvo Ukrayiny Corporation. Being in charge of trotter breeding, he admits that this business lacks financing, yet does not see any signs of disaster.

The Day: Mr. Horoshko, what do you think of the Kyiv Racetrack?

I. H.: I think it’s a good project. It can be a good business and has a powerful base. It has every facility to hold international-level races, with prize-winning all- weather tracks and stables. It’s just that they are having temporary problems with forage supplies. Everything will be all right with the new harvest.

The Day: But what about the horses? They are starving.

I. H.: The racetrack is now run by the municipal authorities, and I’m sure they know what they’re doing. We of the Peasant Party warned that it is a very special project. It must be managed not by just good administrators but by real professionals, most importantly those who know and love horses. I think the situation will get better.

The Day: The Cabinet resolution was enacted almost eight months ago, yet the racetrack is still a waif. The riders say their stables are like Auschwitz barracks.

I. H.: Obviously, the City Hall has more pressing problems to cope with, but the racetrack’s turn will come. After all it is the Ukraine capital’s facility, a place frequented by vacationers and foreign tourists. In fact, the first thing foreigners visiting Kyiv want to see is the racetrack. Many of them are interested in horses. I might also point out that our horses are still in demand abroad. They are our pride.

Listening to Ihor Hrushko, this author thought that by the time the authorities turn their attention to the racetrack all the horses will be probably dead. I can still see those poor starving devils and holes in the concrete floor they cut with their teeth. I remembered a line from Vladimir Mayakovsky: “Listen to the horses; do you think you are any better? My dear friend, we are each of us a horse in our own way.”

Considering the poet’s assumption that there is something of a horse in each of us, another, even sadder, assumption seems in order; by letting these noble beautiful animals suffer we are showing what we can do to ourselves. Who can change this attitude except we ourselves?