Although newspapers are clearly not what they used to be, a letter-to-the-editor (or better yet, op-ed) is still a powerful tool in the activist arsenal. This one recently appeared in The Cornwall Seeker (Ontario, Canada). (My notes are bracketed.)
“No one would argue that horses are abused. The question is: how? There are several ways in which racehorses can be harmed, from being forced to run before they’re fully grown to taking painkillers and other drugs just so they can keep running. Horses also have their space confined by small stalls for hours on end, making them anxious and stressed out. In the worst cases, these animals will be euthanized after years of abuse when their bodies give up on them completely. No matter what kind of horse racing you prefer, the truth remains that all forms involve abusing these beautiful creatures in some way or another! Here are just several reasons why horse racing is cruel.
“Horses are forced to run before they’re fully grown: This can cause several health problems, including joint and bone injuries. Cartilage doesn’t fully form until a horse is around 3 years old, so making them run before this age can be extremely harmful. Additionally, horses’ legs are not fully formed until they’re between 4 and 5 years old [it’s actually 6], which means they’re more susceptible to injuries if they’re made to run too early. Additionally, many popular horse breeds are not meant to be raced. Thoroughbreds, for example, are bred specifically for racing and are often put into training as soon as they’re born [more like 18 months]. This is done to make them faster and more athletic, but it also puts a lot of strain on their bodies.
“Horses are given painkillers and other drugs: This is done to make them run faster and harder, but it can have serious side effects. Painkillers can mask injuries and make horses run even when they’re in pain, which can worsen their injuries.
“Horses are confined to small spaces and not given enough exercise: Horses are social animals and need to move around to stay healthy, both physically and mentally. When they’re confined to small spaces, they can become anxious and stressed….
“Horses suffer injuries during the race: Horses are often pushed beyond their limits during races, which can lead to injuries. It’s estimated that around 20% of racehorses suffer from some kind of injury every year. Some of the most common injuries include broken bones, tendon and ligament damage, and respiratory problems, not to mention the whip marks that are often seen on their bodies. Additionally, many horses are not given the proper care after they suffer an injury. This can lead to further complications and even death. It’s estimated that around 2% of racehorses die from their injuries every year [this is Canada, so I’m unsure of writer’s sources].
“Horses are often euthanized when they can no longer run [please substitute slaughtered for euthanized for this entire paragraph – yes, even in Canada]: When horses can no longer run, they’re often seen as worthless and are euthanized. This can happen when they’re no longer fast enough to win races or when they sustain injuries that make it impossible for them to continue racing. Euthanizing a horse is cheaper than providing lifetime care, so it’s often seen as the most practical solution. However, this doesn’t make it any less cruel. [S]ome horses are lucky enough to be retired to sanctuaries or adopted by loving families. However, there are far too many horses for these homes to take in and the majority of racehorses will still end up being euthanized.
“Horses are sentient creatures that feel pain and suffering just like we do. They deserve to be treated with respect and compassion, not abused for the sake of entertainment. Hopefully, after reading this, you’ll think twice before supporting the horse racing industry.” – Allen Brown
STOP KILLING Racehorses — they’re Abused to DEATH — SHUT DOWN evil HORSERACING — it is horrific through & through — so much evidence showing depraved indifference & sadistic cruelty to Horses — the apologists continue intentionally to be blind & ignorant – SHUT DOWN evil HORSERACING.
Amen. Quit being lazy and go get a REAL job. The END
You said it, Bonnie — give me hug
I speak the truth! Someone needs to be THEIR voice. At its core,it’s no different than forcing Dogs to fight,so men can project themselves onto the innocent animals. It’s like an inferiority ego boost. Here’s your 😘 dear warrior for animals. We’ve got fabulous,genuine,caring Animal lovers on OUR side. YES
YES, you DO speak the truth — keep it up — thank you.
mssm8822, as you say “the apologists continue intentionally to be blind & ignorant” Bob & BRIAN prove your statement to be absolutely perfectly 100% correct!!!!!
Stop abusing horses.
Until you walk the backside and see the many hours grooms and trainers work to take care of these racehorses …… you all need to shut up!!! Lazy is not one of them!! Gina, didn’t you use to train? Most of the comments on this site come from people who don’t even know the anatomy of a horse!!
Lazy, is the fact that literally anyone off the streets could work a job in horse racing. You don’t need any education. It takes hard work to earn a degree in higher education and work a meaningful professional occupation. Not everyone is fit or cut out for higher learning. So,that’s what was meant …. Bob.
How does one know what a party who submits opinions on a site have any idea what they do and do not know? We own horses, have been in the business,have written books on the subject, have rescued horses, been in the vet field. List goes on.
No one needs to walk the backside to acknowledge the sad and unnatural daily lives of racehorses. In fact, Bob, it’s racing owners and even trainers who are CLUELESS about equines and what enriches their lives. The fractional ownerships? – those folks want to “own” a piece of a racehorse just so they can boast about it to their friends and acquaintances – they don’t know the difference between a pastern and the poll. And trainers? – they know only what they’ve been exposed to and that, too, is nothing close to what horses need and crave. Just look at something as elementary as how they feed their racehorses…grain-heavy diets and hay bags at the level of their eyes! – they set them up for GI and respiratory issues, dysfunction of their chewing mechanism and even neck problems. If they knew or cared, they’d do what’s best for the horse instead of the harmful routines one sees stall after stall in the shedrows.
That said, most of us here HAVE been on the backside. What we witnessed was appalling, heartbreaking, eye-opening – and those who truly love the horses and embrace them as family could no longer support the industry that cripples and kills them.
Bob, Bob, Bob: You have no clue about what I have experienced and if you told me that I don’t know anything about horses to my face, I would give you a knuckle sandwich except that your complete stupidity is not worth losing my freedom over. Therefore, I will just laugh at your gullible stupidity. Anyone who thinks that being a groom of horses is such hard work has never “walked in my shoes” I’ll have you know, Bob!!!! Bob, I’ll have you know that when I “worked and got paid to work” as a GROOM of four Thoroughbred race horses for a relatively short time until my circumstances changed drastically, it was like getting paid to go on vacation. I have worked so much harder for so much less money at other jobs that didn’t include being around horses. I was born in 1952 and my parents raised Shetland ponies and beef cattle among other types of animals and when the Shetland mare he started out with had a filly foal in the Spring of 1953, the foal was given to me. So I grew up with horses/ponies. She was alive for 28 years. There’s a lot more to my story of first-hand experience with horses!!!!! My dad also did horseshoeing as one of his sidelines AND he taught me how to hold a horse still while being shod!!!!!!!!!!! He worked at the lumber mill in order to earn enough money to raise a family and have a small herd of cattle and the ponies and a few saddle horses and various necessities and so forth. In about 1957, my dad rented a large pasture of approximately 250 Acres, maybe up to 300 Acres. I don’t know the exact number but that’s what my Dad said it was. If you could see the view from there looking down on the Clearwater River, you would be awestruck. One thing is that it is a 360 degree view of scenery that is good for the soul. Now take yourself back to a 12′ x 12′ box stall for 23 hours a day/7 days a week and tell me the difference. Ha!
Horseracing is cruel. It’s abusive!!! You should be around the horses the other 23 hours a day when they are forced to endure confinement and isolation. If you knew as much as you think we don’t know, you would know that horses need to be turned out to get normal exercise and grazing on a pasture, not a mud pen, for at least 14 (fourteen) hours a day/7 days a week. The list of things wrong with horseracing goes on and on and on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bob, you go right ahead and spew out your “volumes of knowledge” about horses so we can all laugh at your ignorance.
Bob, anyone who attempts to make his or her living from the enforced labor of other living creatures is lazy.
Knowing the anatomy of the horse has nothing to do with knowing whether a horse is being abused or not !!
Exactly, Rose! However, once you do know more about the anatomy and physiology of horses, and as you continue to learn more about the different parts and functions of the anatomy, you can understand more about how much horses suffer from the routine of horseracing and understand more about the extent of their suffering. Ulcers is a prime example of the suffering that these exploited horses must tolerate so certain kinds of people can claim that they “love” horses and that the horses are so “royally treated” and all of that kind of swill and continue to demand government subsidies and tax breaks and write-offs to pay for their evil exploitation of horses.
In some cases, you can instinctively know that an animal is being abused before you even know how to read and write. A goat roper running over the goat with his horse is an example of how you don’t have to be able to read and write to know that it’s abuse!!!!!
There is Nothing wrong with Racing Horses on the Flat – very few are injured! If it there was no Racing, very few people would keep horses and they would become extinct!
TENS of THOUSANDS have been murdered by this gambling racket,and that’s all it is
RIDICULOUS — NOT TRUE — ABSURD — again, NOT TRUE
I don’t expect you to show any evidence to support your statements, BRIAN, because you are full of s***. There is overwhelming evidence to the contrary of what you say, BRIAN.
Brian, you know around 100,000 horses are trucked to Canada and Mexico every year to be slaughtered and around 1/10, or about 10,000 of them, are Thoroughbreds.
The kill lots are full and the owners of the lots along with the kill buyers are making lots of money on misery and cruelty .
Do you know why so many horses are being slaughtered along with foals and pregnant mares? Could it possibly be greedy people are overbreeding because they make money?
The horse business is a dirty business that exists to exploit horses.
As for racing not injuring many horses, with all due respect, you must be living on another planet!!
The statistics and irrefutable evidence of independent researchers and that of the horseracing industry itself on injuries and deaths of horses racing on the flat prove you wrong.
There are REAL sports to gamble on,literally infinite amount of sports. Horse racing is nothing more than using innocent animals as gambling chips. Horse racing is a corrupt RACKET pure and simple. A sport can only be humans who have the ability to Consent. Horses cannot give Consent. Hey Brian how bout you accompany the horses to the kill pens and then take the long crammed journey with them to the slaughter house and then watch them being turned into dog food!
If Brian had to ride in the back of the truck with the horses, he would get trampled to death before they reached the slaughter house. Of course, letting a human being ride in the truck (designed for cattle) full of horses destined for slaughter is not legal. Just saying that there is no end to the cruelty to horses exploited by racing and wagering revenue and government subsidies and government-directed benefits.
There’s something that enrages me every time the memory flashes in my mind … remember the year Mongolian Groom lost his life in the breeders cup? Ok, here’s the memory I cannot get out of mind,and that is … no chin todd pletcher and his Waaaaaaaaay over the top celebration while Mongolian Groom was dying. Yeah,you ugly man … we get it your horse won the race. I will never get your homely face out of my mind, and your over the top orgasm …. 😒. Just one (but the worst) hideous shameful display of greed,I wish I could scrub from my memories of the evil man has done to innocent unsuspecting Animals . Just one more of a million reasons this shameful chapter of history must go in the trash heap of atrocities done by humans on anything they can subject to abuse. Anything man can dominate …. boy,they’re all up for that. PATHETIC. Watch the replay from that year til the bitter end,and you will absolutely see his over the top disgustingness.
Bonnie, I didn’t see that. I googled but what I found was Todd Pletcher being interviewed by the NBC Sports woman holding the microphone and asking the questions. She turned to another man, but I didn’t catch exactly who he was. I didn’t want to watch more than a few seconds because the whole concept of celebrating the “victory” of Grade One horse racing industry ABUSE is too revolting. I find it just too nauseating and cringe-worthy and vomit-worthy and it’s like I can’t stand it!!! I don’t care what they think!!! The horse’s connections are creeps and I can’t stand it!!!
I found a chart that shows the foal crops of Jockey Club registered Thoroughbreds for each year from 1990 to 2016. The 2017-2018 numbers are estimates on the particular chart that I found. The numbers show that the number of JC registered foals are in decline almost each year from 40,333 in 1990 to 21,024 in 2016 and estimated to be 19,925 in 2018.
Some of them will be sport horses and some will be racehorses. Roughly 10,000 of them go to slaughter. The commercial breeding farm people know that but all they care about is producing a foal that will bring high prices at the Keeneland and Fasig-Tipton Mixed, Yearling, & Two-year-olds in training sales. Greedy, narcissistic, money-grubbing, psychopaths deliberately causing the horses to perform as though they were full-grown adult horses when they are yearlings and two-year-olds is something that is built-in to this business model called horse racing AKA the Sport of Kings, a Bloodsport!
Wanda, Mike Repole horse Vino Rosso won that tragic race. It may have been him in the interview circle.
Thank you, Nancy. I read a remark somewhere that his horse was like wine in that he got better with age. The idea of these vile abusers comparing any horse to wine is stupid and creepy! It is so repulsive and nauseating especially considering that they start exploiting these horses from such a young age before they are mature. (IDIOTS!) Horses being sentient beings makes it vomit-worthy to compare a horse to a consumer product while they are abusing the horses for money and an ego trip! Disgusting!!!!
Still breaks my heart to this very day every time I think of dear sweet loyal Mongolian Groom, that gut-wrenching horrible breeders cup race and the evil black hearts celebrating gleefully. The end of horseracing cannot come soon enough for all of the suffering victims. Another atrocity and act of abuse I have seen on the back property of a horseracing owner was to discard and abandon a beautiful living crippled racehorse, unable to stand, without any food or water, and just leave him there to die a lingering excruciating painful death. Couldn’t be bothered to put him out of his misery. These people are inhabited by the devil himself and show it in everything they do.