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Broken Horses (now streaming on Hulu) opens with people describing horse racing in glowing terms: “The most exciting two minutes in sports.” “Beautiful chaos.” “Mesmerizing.” And right about now you’re thinking, is there a BUT coming? Yes, of course there is: BUT, the dark fringe of the sport is being exposed. This documentary, presented by The New York Times, takes a critical angle on horse racing after a dozen horses died during Kentucky Derby week in 2023. Times reporter Joe Drape sums up the film’s thesis when he says these deaths aren’t “a new phenomenon… but people now want to know why.”
The Gist: A talking-head commentator justifies the existence of Broken Horses: this moment feels like an inflection point in horse racing. The beauty and rousing competition of the sport is being sullied by grotesque instances of exploitation, doping and animal cruelty. This film’s array of owners, breeders, trainers and NYT horse racing reporters are coming to the conclusion that the sport is becoming more about money than anything else, which, you know, duh. Nobody’s surprised by this revelation, or that horse owners aren’t just old-money julep-sipping Southerners-of-tradition – they’re increasingly hedge-fund types who rake in hundreds of millions by hoovering up hundreds of horses at auctions, entering a few in each race and inevitably taking home fat purses when one of them wins. So much for being enamored by the spirit of competition – it’s a numbers game now. It’s moneyball.
The film explores one sad example: Havenameltdown, bred by Katerine Devall. She ahres videos of the horse, newborn on spindly legs, and being a card, sticking his butt in the feeding trough so his mother can’t eat; she loved that animal, and we see her kissing him on the snout. She never saw one of her horses run in a huge race like the Derby before, but there he was, fast as the dickens, maybe a true standout – and there he went. Tumbled to the dirt. And out comes the tarp, the horrible symbol of tragedy. It’s to cover the horse so the crowd can’t see it being euthanized.
Then we meet Bob Baffert – well, we don’t meet him, because he doesn’t participate in the documentary. And for obvious reasons, since he’s the film’s villain, a world-famous horse trainer with piles of Derby and Preakness winners on his resume. But alongside the glory is the shame of multiple doping violations, which elicit fines that are teensy in comparison to the millions raked in for winning a big race. Baffert was suspended from the sport for two years for doping horses with both banned and regulated drugs ranging from thyroid medicine to aspirin, and some of it is undetectable. Animal lovers should brace themselves for the subsequent commentary, which reveals that some veterinarians and trainers dope their horses with cocaine or viagra, or go so far as to rub cayenne pepper on their genitals to get them to run faster.
In the wake of Baffert’s suspension, the FBI began putting together baseline evidence of doping, hoping it could goose a regulation statute that was hung up in the halls of Congress. And so it gets political, as some insist the sport should self-regulate in lieu of federal oversight (can you hear some horse racing defenders grousing that they don’t want BIG GOVERNMENT in their sport? I can). It works, and some regulatory protocols get put in place, except it doesn’t cover breeding or sales. Other countries have strict regulations, and have curbed some of these problems. Why can’t America do the same? Your answer is probably just as cynical as mine, but maybe they’re getting there?
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Broken Horses is a slightly lesser version of a middle-of-the-road episode of ESPN’s 30 for 30. Otherwise, this is the perfect opportunity to plug the previous NYT-branded effort on Hulu, Spermworld, which is shaping up to be the best documentary of the year.
Performance Worth Watching: Trainer Arthur Hancock is admirably unrestrained in his commentary about the sport he loves.
Memorable Dialogue: NYT reporter Melissa Hoppert: “A racehorse is the only animal that can take 1,000 people for a ride all at once.”
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: Apparently, an investigation of the 12 horse deaths in 2023 was inconclusive, and there may not have been a common cause. Broken Horses implies otherwise, that rampant doping, corruption and ethical failures combined to leave the sport with a big, ugly black eye (a similar comparison might be baseball slugger Mark McGwire’s admission that he used steroids during the season he broke the home run record). The film gives us plenty of evidence – the FBI wiretaps are especially damning – that some type of regulatory oversight is necessary to curb what is essentially animal abuse for the sake of profit.
One of the other film’s implications, that the “mesmerizing” “beauty” of the sport is forever diminished by the pursuit of money, has less teeth – but give directors Rachel Abrams, Liz Day and Hoppert credit for avoiding emotional arguments and sticking to reasonably compelling reportage. They notably avoid making this an animal-rights missive, although the subtext tells us that we should accept the notion that doping horses to enhance performance or mask injury is absolutely cruel (who’d argue against treating animals kindly, anyway?). Rather, they stick to some reasonably sound journalism for a fairly basic, informative talking-heads-and-archival-footage documentary that racing aficionados can pick apart for being either too broad or derivative, but ultimately brings more general, broadstoked awareness to a significant issue in high-profile sports. A lot like a New York Times expose, you might say.
Our Call: Broken Horses is a rock-solid slice of sports journalism. I knew little about the topic prior to watching, and felt significantly more informed after. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
