We have no idea whether thoroughbred horses love to race.

I have been a racing fan for years, and my point is not that horse racing is cruel or morally ambiguous.

I think the sense of obligation runs at a deeper, even subliminal level. We are responsible for racehorses because we in a very real sense created them.

Every thoroughbred is descended from one of three stallions. 95 percent of the thoroughbreds alive today are descendants of Eclipse, bred by a son of King George II and born during a solar eclipse in 1764.