To be blunt: Racing is much better than most horse sports about both drug use (gambling means clean racing is a criminal-justice issue as cheating is legally fraud, unlike things like hunter-jumper shows, where "prep" is normal and needle bins are standard issue in the barns, or the Big Lick Walkers where if it weren't sad it would be funny how many trailers haul out as soon as the USDA inspectors arrive at a show to check for soring.) And as far as aftercare goes, TBs are a minority in shipping to slaughter, but are noticed more because they're easily traced (all that race are tattooed, after 2017 all will have a mandatory microchip.) The biggest threat for post-race TBs is that until the recent push to spotlight OTTB sport horses with special shows and classes, the post-track market had the bottom drop out. Riding/show trainers cannot make enormous commissions on low-four-figure track horses and most are not ideal mounts for clients who want show-ring ready rides, and it's gotten easier to import European-bred jumper ring rejects as hunters. While it's not the private riding world's job to take whatever the racing world offers, it's not the racing world's job to downgrade their product so it's more marketable to amateur riders. Racehorses are bred for a purpose, and some will probably need to be put down when they've served it unless someone who isn't running a business wants to take them on. Owners are not obligated to keep them forever any more than show owners are obliged to keep every mount forever. (We won't go into AQHA's position on overbreeding and slaughter, but suffice to say after 'unknown' grade horses, Quarter Horse culls are the most common in the slaughter pipeline, and their registry actively supports this practice.) There are always bad apples, but racing as a whole has cleaner hands and better aftercare than the majority of horse activities, and punishments and public shaming are much quicker (see the junior hunters, where suspensions are routinely challenged and drug offenses excused, even in cases with horse fatalities. Of all the equine disciplines, if you leave out Big Lick, hunters are probably both the dirtiest and least apologetic about it.)
Basically, if you worry too much about what happens to unsuccessful racers, buy one. (I own AP's 'cousin'-same female line-who ran mostly in claimers. Not to 'save' him and I did not 'rescue' him.) Otherwise, those unsuccessful horses have not remotely earned the kind of money where their owners could retire them on their earnings. (And most owners don't have a farm anyway, while the trainers don't have the money. Lucky's last trainer wouldn't have been able to feed another pony over the winter or he'd have kept him.) And most horse sports are uglier than racing when you look past the money, racing just tattoos and soon microchips so they stick out more. One bay warmblood or chestnut quarter horse, meanwhile, looks like any other.
And I ran the hypothetical mating on equineline of Zenyatta and AP. It would actually be a very interesting and extremely clean cross-no inbreeding within five generations. But I'm sure the Mosses would prefer to see what he sires first and how the War Front cross on her turns out if this next foal lives, though at this point, honestly? I would want to see if Zenyatta throws something that can run before coughing up AP's fee. Cozmic One, if he were with owners who weren't rich enough to just keep him for fun, probably should either leave SoCal (and I mean like to New Mexico or Louisiana) or drop into the high-end maiden claimers as he's clearly out of his depth in southern Cali MSWs.
(Although scathing reactions in the comments section re how an equine photographer was needed. Per knowledgeable horse people: AP's right hind leg should be forward to show off his hind quarters to better advantage, plus a dry horse photographs better than a wet one).
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