Letters to the Editor
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You couldn't have for a better Salon column
Animal rights, rich white people, gambling? The nanny state perfect storm.
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PETA
That's the best you could do for quotes about why horse racing needs to be changed or abolished? There are good reasons for change in horse racing, but using PETA as a source removes all credibility. This is the same organization that claims milk is bad for you and pet ownership is slavery.
You need to do a better job evaluating your sources.
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The media let Eight Belles down...
by not showing her true story right to the end. Yes, it was horrible, but turning our heads away so as not to be upset is wrong. Eight Belles had to live through it and we should have had the guts to live it with her. We like to sanitize unpleasant things (don't want to upset the women-folk and the children!), we like to sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn't happen or give it the 'oh, well...it happens' and go about merry way oblivious to the plight of other animals serving at our mercy for 'entertaiment'--all for our love of money.
Maybe if some impressionable child saw the horror of Eight Belles last moments, maybe, just maybe, they would be inspired to live a life dedicated to finding ways to help horses like Eight Belles survive or crusade for the ban of horseracing. Maybe another kid will treat his hamster, cat or dog a little kinder from now on after seeing what we did to Eight Belles.
If I ran my dog until her front legs broke (oh, she just loves to run), I'd have a heap of explaning to do at the vets. Why is it unacceptable to do this to your dog and not to a horse?
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Here we go again
The obligatory "anti-PETA" rant.
Sorry, milk IS bad for you. It is meant for calves, not people. Watch the process. Watch as that cow desperately tries to protect her calf from the man taking it away...off to some veal crate. Watch how many of these dairy cows have horribly infected udders that end up putting pus into the milk. Yummy.
As far as pets being enslavement, categorically untrue. The organization allows employees to bring their "pets" to work with them, so that they are not left home alone. Yeah. Extreme!
PETA is a well establish organization focused on ending animal abuse. If they do crazy antics to get media attention, if some of their surrogates get carried away, then oh well. That unfortunately is going to come with the territory.
Minimizing and marginalizing PETA's work on behalf of animals is the same as saying that America's current behavior globally is a direct reflection of the character of each individual citizen in the country.
We don't want that, now, do we?
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@Penny Barrett Hornsby: Good letter.
Thanks for pushing back against the kneejerk reactionaries.
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Injury = death?
This is the thing most people don't understand and which this article doesn't even begin to address. Injuries are common consequences of many sports. But if LeBron James was hurt on the court, nobody would suggest euthanizing him right there. Not even if it was the sort of injury where he might never walk again, much less play basketball. It wouldn't matter how badly he was hurt, we would presume that doctors would do everything they could for him.
I've tried to find answers for this. What do I find? People who sound very knowledgeable talking about how "impractical" a sling for a horse is. How difficult it is to distribute the weight properly afterwards. Impractical? Difficult? If people were prone to these injuries we'd have researchers working around the clock to come up with some space-age appliance to provide proper support for healing.
But they're just horses. So we kill them instead. Ahem, sorry, "euthanize".
The fact that a sport might be dangerous isn't what galls ordinary people about this sort of event. It's that the people who have been charged with caring for these beautiful animals deliberately put them into danger knowing full well that they have only one way of dealing with injury afterwards. We would never accept this treatment of other athletes, I see no reason why we should accept it here. Until such time as veterinary medicine *can* treat these injuries, human beings should not be intentionally putting horses into situations where such injuries are probable.
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get it right
There are a lot of things wrong with horse racing, but "someone on their back whipping the crap out of them" isn't one of them. Race horses run because that's what they do; that's what they've been bred to do, and they do it instinctively. They WANT to run, and in a race, they will run. The jockey uses his whip more for encouragement and communication with the animal than to punish it. The whip is a tool, not a weapon. Believe me, a 1500-pound horse pumped up with adrenalin in a race will barely feel the stroke of that little crop. Let's focus on the aspects of racing that do hurt them.
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"Loving" These Animals
I spent a summer working at a racetrack in Arizona. I always thought it strange that owners and handlers "loved" their animals, yet put them in these races which caused such incredible stress. That stress is really where the excitement is. A horse race is a contest to see who has the best, strongest, fastest, well-trained animal. The excitement of that contest is what draws people as audiences. Add in the excitement of gambling on a live spectacle and you can see why most people overlook the fundamental premise that these animals are being abused. It begins with the breeding process and carries through to the make or break expectations of the races. By the end of the summer I'd seen lots of bad injuries and several horses put down on the track. When the white curtains go up and the crowd speaks in a low hush, the faintest sense of shared guilt starts to creep in. We wouldn't feel that guilt if we knew in our hearts that the enterprise of horse racing is morally right.
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A vote against horse racing
I will never watch another one. These horses are bred as commodities for speculators for the most part. Barbaro's owners were of the old guard and loved the horse enough to try to save him. Eight Belle's corporate owners cut their losses and collected their insurance without a second thought.
It is no fun watching a sport in which the athlete's repeatedly die.