horse racing

[invisible]

in australia we have a famous horse race that is coming up. it's called the melbourne cup. it's traditionally known as the race that stops the nation. it's like this great australian institution. everyone is supposed to stop work and turn on the wireless while it's on or something. workplaces conduct sweeps and we're all supposed to bet on it. of course fashion industries make stacks of money selling hats and dresses and whatever.

this activity of horse racing makes me angry. the jockeys flog those horses with all their strength nonstop for the entire duration of the race. it's just another way of making cruelty to animals into human entertainment, like bull fighting and bear baiting and so on. why do people have to gamble on animal cruelty?

or am i being oversensitive to the treatment of animals in this case? i know they have these races in the states too, because i read this famous essay called "the kentucky derby is decadent and depraved". and i've seen them all over the world now that i think of it. people enjoy gambling on them.

thoughts?

EDIT, and now that i think of it, they probably flog it quite a lot while they're "training" it, too.

 

[Kgal]

Ah Invisible. Horse racing, the Sport of Kings, as they call it. I remember reading about the Melbourne Cup when I was young when I was reading everything I could get my hands on when it came to horses.

I remember watching Secretariat win the Kentucky Derby. At the time it was the most awesome win I had ever seen. That great horse just kept going and going and by the time he finished he was over 20 lengths away from the nearest horse back behind him. It was incredible.

Later we learned he had been given steroids - so much so - that for many years afterwards he could not father foals. I think then is when I learned that they treated horses like machines and I never watched the Derby again.
In my time we grew up reading stories like National Velvet, which put the horse and the rider as the underdogs and in it they had to have courage and heart to win. My kind of story - ya know.

Those bats they use on the horse are not really that painful - so there is not really flogging going on. When I took dressage lessons I learned how to use a long crop as cues for my horse - not as a punishment for misbehavior. The bats the riders use should be for the cue for the horse to begin his all out run. For each race and horse, there is a strategy of sorts, and the rider hopes the horse can perform when he needs him to. But the jockey is striving to judge not only his horse, but all the horses around, trying not to get boxed in, and then judging when to push his horse for the final sprint.

With that being said, they are generally treated as investments these days, like a company, or a property of some kind the owners expect to get a reasonable return on their money. Just like any sport these days, no one is in it for the pure joy of racing. And believe me, I've raced my horses, and the horse plain likes to run at full tilt. Especially thoroughbreds. That's why they're bred for it.

So yes - you're right. The horses are mistreated. Years ago, I adopted a used quarterhorse race horse who was blind in one eye. It seems his owner didn't have enough money to get the vet to treat him for a clod of dirt thrown up in his eye during a race. As a result his eye became infected and scarred over to occlude his vision. Was really sad. Our vet said it wouldn't have cost his owner/trainer very much to save his eye.

I named him Pippin, cause he had a mischievous personality, and he loved people. He and I had to develop a love relationship based upon my voice so that we could work with him on his blind side. It's an amazing feeling watching a 1000lb animal calm down and honestly give his heart to his work solely based upon my loving calls and coaxing tone.

I don't think you're being overly sensitive to the plight of the horses in the racing world. They are used and abused all in the name of greed. Like most every sentient being on the planet.

The best we can do is not buy into the hype - Yes?

 

[kucala]

Oh, man. You just hit on one of the subjects that is guaranteed to piss me off.

I don't know much about australian horse racing, so i'm going to talk about american horse racing here. [Thoroughbred racing, particularly].

They are raced far too young. In most disciplines, horses aren't started until somewhere between the ages of 2 and 5, depending on the horse. I'd say the average was 3 or 4. Track TB's [thoroughbreds] are RACED at the age of 2 or 3. That means they have to start training them under saddle as a yearling [1 y/o]. That is FAR too young. Yes, TB's are bred to physically develop very quickly, but even so, their bodies are still developing and it can leave them with major issues later in life, even fatal ones.

When they are raced at this age, they retire by the age of around 5. If they aren't kept for breeding purposes, they are sold. Although it is true some race horse owners sell them to buyers, mostly they go to auction. And as any horse person knows, auctions are a great place for kill buyers and other nasty people. So many horses go to the slaughterhouse [which aren't even legal in the US anymore, so they get shipped to Canada and Mexico]. And they're not even middle-aged! The average lifespan of a horse is 30-35, and these horses are 5! It's horrid. I could go on about how horse slaughter is terrible and how Canada needs to make it illegal, but that's a seperate topic.

The whole point of racing is FASTFASTFAST, right? Well, in order to achieve this, they take a horse bred for speed, feed them super high energy food, keep them locked in a stall, feed them painkillers [at the least, legal ones that they won't get disqualified for, at the most, extreme painkillers and steroids and the like] to keep them from appearing lame or slowing, then beat them the entire time. Yes, as K-Gal said, the bats are really not all that painful, and in most disciplines, are just used as an aid, particularly since the jockey's extreme 2-point position doesn't allow them to use their legs. However, I still think it is excessive. And the abuse that goes on behind the scenes is horrific. I'm not saying there isn't abuse and drugging going on in other disciplines, because there definitely is. But it's so prominent in the racing industry.

Many OTTB's [off the track thoroughbreds] can make lovely mounts for other disciplines. But there needs to be a lot of retraining first. And by re-training, I mean completely re-starting from the ground up. Because they are trained to just run and nothing else, they can have problems learning that slowing down is okay. Also, because they only race in one direction, that can make them very one-sided and crooked, and combined with the fact that they are started at such a young age, it can mess them up, a lot.

One more thing that bothers me, is that they are being bred lighter and lighter. When you look at the "old-type" TB's, they're big, and chunky, and muscular. European TB's are more like this. But american TB's [I don't know about Australian ones] are getting bred with finer and smaller bones. This makes them very susceptible to broken bones. And as you may have heard, a broken bone is often fatal for a horse.

I only covered the basics here.

I am not against horse racing. I am against what horse racing has become. It needs to have some major changes made.

 

[Kgal]

Yep - what Teracat said too! :high5:

 

[Bird]

):


I do not like the house racing industry.
(':

 

[magister343]

Before I was born (I think it was actually before my parents first started dating) my father (a CPA) used to have a side business breeding horses. I believe those were only Arabian Show Horses though, not Race Horses.