Our previous dog, Trooper, came to us at the age of one with just one eye. He had been found in the streets down in Tennessee with multiple injuries, one of which was unsalvageable damage to his right eye. Although very social, Trooper was always guarded in new situations or outside the home, surely feeling a bit vulnerable with only 50% sight.
I mention this because the vile Paulick Report ran a piece this week about 5-year-old Big Earn. What makes her newsworthy, apparently, is not necessarily her record but the fact that she races with one eye, having lost the left when “one morning, she became upset when a horse walked by, reared up, and her head went through the ceiling.” It’s meant to be a heartwarming horse-interest story – “she gives it her all every time she runs” – but…
Horses, unlike dogs, are prey animals with a pronounced flight instinct, and one of their great defensive assets is their panoramic vision. When that vision is diminished – in this case by half – their anxiety must ratchet up. Add to that the normal stressors of the track – the crowd, the starting gate, artificial “rivals,” the whole being whip-forced to run (in tight quarters) at a breakneck speed – and you have an out-of-the-ordinary cruelty mix. If Trooper, a dog, felt vulnerable, how do you suppose Big Earn, a horse, feels?
The moment she lost an eye, Big Earn should have been retired – a true retirement, that is, grazing, playing, and lazing in a pasture with other (free) horses. She should have been given security. Instead, they – primarily Helen Marshall and Michael Trombetta – continue to exploit and abuse her. For shame.
Daniel Moretti, you are the only one suggesting that a horse with one good eye and one blind eye cannot function on a racetrack. That is not what is being said here.
What is being pointed out is that it is ADDED CRUELTY to cause MORE ANXIETY and FEAR to THE HORSE by demanding said horse to function at 100% in potentially deadly circumstances with roughly 50% of vision.
If racehorses had to pass a vision test to qualify to race, she might have her “license to race revoked” so to speak; that is if we compared this with a human operator of motor vehicles being visually impaired and therefore not being able to pass the vision test for a driver’s license renewal.
Being vision impaired as a motorist does not mean that you can’t (or don’t know how to) drive; it just means that you can’t drive legally because of the ADDED RISK of injury and death. You can imagine the ADDED level of anxiety and fear of having a bad accident if you were in the driver’s seat and not being able to see what you need to see as soon as you need to see it.
Since racehorses on the racetrack are usually guided by a rider, with whip-in-hand, on their back, it is not the same as being the only one responsible for whatever “trainwreck” may happen in a close call on the horse racing track.
Horseracing itself is a trainwreck as evidenced by the numerous fallen horses, euthanized horses, collapsed horses; racehorses are being killed by racing (and training for racing) every day in this industry. That is not to mention the neglect of horses abandoned by their connections after the horse is so injured and/or sick that racing is not possible and they get rid of the horse by giving him or her away to someone who is not prepared for the expense of providing appropriate care for the horse.
Who knows how many racehorses have been dumped and abandoned? I’m thinking of Eastern Kentucky as one example where horses were abandoned and left to starve and die. Thankfully, the Kentucky Humane Society rescued one fairly recently.
My point is that if people truly cared about the health, well-being, and longevity of their horses, they would not be playing a form of Russian Roulette with the lives of the horses by forcing them to engage in an extremely dangerous and high-risk activity.
It’s not a matter of whether she can, Daniel, only that it’s extra cruel to make her.
This horse reminds us of Dobi Pay who lost his eye in a truck / trailer wreck on Hwy.6 here in Oregon. Poor Dobi Pay was raced for YEARS with 1 eye! He earned more $$ in his time than what we could earn in years. He was 1 of the 1st truly trained to race Thoroughbreds we rode in 1982. He was very light on his feet being ridden & was so much like our own 3/4 Arabian 1/4 Welsh, we truly were surprised. Dobi Pay should have been retired way before 1982 when we rode him. Every time you gallop or run a horse on a track you`re taking risk of dirt clods striking the remaining eye & the horse losing all his eyesight! As riders we use goggles! A one eyed horse should have some type of protection as well as normal sighted ones too.
Big Earn is not the only one exploited with one eye. Remember Patch? He is retired now but raced several times.
I don’t know how this particular horse handles having one eye. But I disagree with the sentiment of that there is no way a horse can reliably race without two eyes. Living things can adapt or not. It’s going too far, imho, to categorically say no horse with only one eye can function on a racetrack.
The way the pro-racing crowd glamorizes and glorifies their own toxic dysfunctionalism towards the horses makes you want to believe that SEABISCUIT was a “Hard Luck Hero” for the masses of people who suffered horrendous poverty and hard luck during the Great Depression of the United States in the 1930s.
So, if taking a hard look at the abuse inflicted on the horses by the human beings is just too sour-tasting for your liking, spit it out and add some crazy flavor to it. Put a spin on it! Make it more “palatable” to the masses; there is money in putting that spin on it. Don’t call it what it is; call it what your greedy, selfish, toxic and dysfunctional mind can handle. Glorify it. Glamorize it. It is still Animal Cruelty.