Voss: A Farewell, And A Thank You To Readers originally appeared on Paulick Report.
Anyone who remembers me from my earliest days at the Paulick Report knows that I’m not much of a gambler. One of my first weekly assignments soon after I started full-time back in 2013 was to preview the weekend’s stakes races and list my picks for a handful of them. I quickly learned that I was not the most inventive handicapper, as I frequently had to talk myself out of the morning-line favorite. Eventually, I found my niches, and they don’t include looking for some hidden gem in the entries at 30-1. For me, the future was right there in the black and white of the past performances.
Which brings me to this: I’m no longer willing to bet my entire professional future on the horse racing industry.
A few weeks ago, a mainstream reporter called me for some background information. He was putting together his first story on the local racetrack, and he wanted to better understand the challenges facing the racing industry. He’d done some research on his own, but was finding it a little hard to follow, and who could blame him? Mostly, he wanted to know whether its future was bright. He was getting the sense it wasn’t, but he’d had too many different explanations thrown at him to understand exactly why not.
That right there was the problem, I told him. It wasn’t just the public concerns about racehorse safety. It wasn’t just integrity concerns about doping or the growing expense of drug testing, or the fact that testing, by its nature, is perpetually a step behind rule-breakers. It wasn’t just that racing is competing with new legal and illegal forms of wagering, or its long-standing inability/disinterest in attracting a new generation to that wagering, a struggle which has gone on so long now the most hopeful among us have given up on my generation and are focusing instead on Gen Z. It wasn’t only that the foal crop is shrinking and live racing is becoming less and less profitable as field sizes slowly contract, or that more and more wagering comes from computers instead of humans. It was all these things.
It wasn’t his call that led me to this decision, but as I ran through the list I was struck by how inevitable the choice seemed. So far this year, we’ve published stories about five different tracks being on the brink of closure. For most of my nearly 13 years here, the industry’s foes have loomed, growing larger and blurring together until they’re one big shadow.
I’ve always considered myself horse racing’s stern parent – the person self-appointed to love the sport, yes, but also to hold up a mirror to the industry’s problems and urge it to get its act together before it’s too late for all of us. It hasn’t always been an enjoyable task, but it’s one I’ve done earnestly and with mixed results.
Writing about racing’s history was often a pleasant diversion. The more time I spent happily buried in clippings files at the Keeneland Library, or flipping through decades-old issues of The Blood-Horse at home, the more I realized that I was hardly the first reporter who had taken this approach. Both turf writers and industry participants have been flagging some of the same types of problems years before me. The problems we’re facing now have accelerated in the last decade as cultural attitudes toward animals have changed and technology has granted people greater access to new forms of entertainment, but the warning whispers were there, in columns and thorough reporting. And yet, we’re still here, perpetually feeling like the whole thing is on the edge of a cliff (not just my feeling, but one I’ve heard from countless people in recent months and years, from those in my age bracket to those twice my age).
I believe that the future is often written in the past performances. Everything you need is there, on the record. And that most of the time, the odds are stacked against a runner for a reason. If the industry is able to claw its way back from this moment in history, it’ll be the biggest upset since Mine That Bird. Don’t get me wrong – I love an upset, and I’m rooting for this one. I would have put a couple dollars on him to show, maybe. But not my whole life.
I want to be clear: it’s the industry I’ve lost faith in, not the sport. I still believe in horse racing. I still believe that horses run for us because they love it, and also because we ask them to. I’ve seen it. From the workmates dueling in the fog at the Oklahoma Training Track to the closer breaking through at the wire, shaking the ground I’ve stood upon. I believe in the many good people I know are out there with them, loving their horses as I love mine, upholding their standards of integrity and sportsmanship no matter what. And of course, I’ve never stopped loving the horses. They’ve carried me across the world. They’ve truly, literally given me everything I have, and I’ll spend my life trying to repay them for it. That’s why my next career chapter is so appealing to me.
Starting this week, I’ll be serving as the new director of corporate communications for the U.S. Equestrian Federation. Horses will still be at the center of everything I do, they’ll just be jumping, driving, and dancing instead of galloping. The sport horse world has been watching racing’s struggles with its social license to operate these last few years and has been quietly taking notes. I believe they’re committed to building a better future for horses and participants, and I’m looking forward to helping them communicate that to their members and to the public.
I would be remiss if I didn’t issue thanks here. If you’ve ever taken the time to tell me your story or your horse’s story, if you’ve ever fielded a call from me asking about obscure veterinary topics or soil science, know I’ve appreciated it, in the moment and years after. If you’ve read one of my stories and sent me a note about it (good, bad, or indifferent), thank you for taking the time. If you’ve ever asked me a question about a topic I’ve written about, you’ve launched a wave of curiosity for me (that maybe turned into a follow-up story, or maybe just got buried in my research files), and for that I’m grateful. If you read a story, emailed a story, shared it on social media, told a friend about it – thank you. As much as I couldn’t have had this wonderful job without the horses, I also couldn’t have had it without our readers.
I’ll still be tuning in to the NBC and FOX broadcasts of the major stakes races. You might find me on the rail now and then. I’ll certainly still be reading my Paulick Report morning newsletter each day, and I hope you will, too.
This story was originally reported by Paulick Report on Jun 10, 2025, where it first appeared.
