This morning, we present another poem from Ronda Cooperstein. Thank you, Ronda.
(Here are Ronda’s other contributions to our site. If you’d like to share a writing – a poem, a personal story – please reach out: patrickjbattuello@gmail.com.)
“Don’t Give Up”
How do you get through to a friend
Who won’t believe a word you say
When you tell him horseracing is cruel
The suffering immense and deep
He closes his eyes and goes to sleep
Or laughs at your “misplaced” empathy
Shaking his head, rolling his eyes
As if you are the one who needs help
He is so smug and sure
That the horses love nothing more
Than to run for the money to please
The men who feed them
Only to bleed them you say
And grind them down to dust
This man, your friend, just walks away
He doesn’t want to fight
He KNOWS he is right
But you press on with the facts
And send him the link to Horseracing Wrongs
You ask him to think about life
Outside of his square human box
And you tell him if he can’t
His head must be full of rocks
You can lead a man to water
But you can’t make him drink
You called me and cried
You felt such rage inside
And asked my advice, how to keep such a friend
I said let it rest but don’t give up
Keep trying and try again.
In a nutshell, horseracing is organized crime. The Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance is not saving nearly as many horses as they could. I don’t think saving horses after they have been used as racehorses is the true mission of the TAA; I believe the true mission of the TAA is to create the ILLUSION that the people in this industry care about the horses after these greedy people have exploited them. The TAA is something that the public relations department of this multi-billion-dollar horse exploiting industry can wave around and deceive the uninformed.
(There could possibly be a select few individuals in horseracing who actually do care but they are not rich enough to stop this whole run away train of an industry.)
The Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance is a self-serving thing created by industry insiders.
The reality is that thousands of Thoroughbreds, as well as other breeds of horses, become “unwanted” by their owners for whatever reason.
Some of the rich owners could not care less about their horses after they have used and abused their Thoroughbreds and won lots of money in purses at least. Who knows what they might have won in gambling?!
Even when a particular race horse wins these certain people hundreds of thousands of dollars, they can still dump the horse like a piece of garbage and refuse to pay $5 for aftercare and I’m serious when I say this. It’s not an exaggeration. A measly $5.00 from a Thoroughbred owning couple who ran this particular Thoroughbred filly/mare until she was used up as a racehorse and they dumped her. When asked by a woman representing the rescue that saved the mare from starvation and/or slaughter, the rich owner refused to give $5.00 and his lame excuse was that his wife gives to other charities.
Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance is highlighting the charitable gift of Bob and Jill Baffert – $15 grand and they think this will clean up their image? Baffert killed 82 horses and he makes 200 million per annum so the generosity of this couple is really appalling. Ten percent of 200 million is Twenty Million not $15 Grand. It is revolting that the the industry tolerates this couple when they should be chased out of horse racing with chastisements and charges of felony abuse of horses for each and every victim Baffert slaughtered with his criminal activities of drugs given to lame horses.