Letters to the Editor
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Give me a break!
The only people defending horseracing are horseowners who want to make money off their animals and don't want anyone questioning them, gamblers, and people who know nothing about horses. I have lived with horses for twenty-five years and they run for two reasons -- they are afraid and running for safety or they are forced to run. Horseracing forces them to run. After years of listening to humans defend their abuse of non-human animals, I have come to the conclusion that the main difference between human beings and other animals is not our superior brains, not our ability to speak, not our ability to feel, etc. it is our ability to justify any kind of abuse -- to each other or to other species.
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So big of you, Mr. McClelland, to accept injuries as part and parcel of your gambling habit
But it seems like it must be relatively easy to accept when one is blithly unempathetic in the face of injuries to animals. The jockeys, they seem to accept this as well. The veterinarians who work in the industry, and the breeders, too. Funny how it can be easy to accept the cost of a pleasurable endeavour when it comes out of the pocket of a dumb mute creature.
You don't understand the revulsion, or you would feel it too.
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Cruelty To The Poor
I'm definitely an animal lover, but I'd never outlaw a sport like this just because there are occasional tragedies. If you think it's wrong to race horses, then you should think it's wrong to selectively breed or keep Fluffy and Fido as pets too, since they were all meant to be roaming the wild. Life comes with a little risk. These horses are loved by many, marveled at by most, and treated humanely in all but a few cases. A more noble goal related to this sport might be helping all the gamblers addicted to betting on the horses. Have you ever been to the track on a weekday when all the betting is on closed circuit monitors? Here is where you will find many stories of hardship, tragedy and a need for someone to give a damn.
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Penny Barrett Hornsby
I like to "see animals being treated humanely, being trained at an appropriate age by qualified individuals, and bred responsibly".
I also like thoroughbred horse racing and, having been around it for most of my life, I think it generally fulfills most of the above requirements. As soon as the article appeared I knew that those with minimal or no knowledge of the sport would start adding their emotional two cents worth.
It is unfortunate that letters receiving an Editor's Choice Star contain such emotional self centered drivel as:
"I know first hand, race people treat horses like shit".
"witnessing horses push themselves beyond their capabilities because someone is on their back whipping the crap out of them"
"We've about reached the limit of what "natural" horses can do"
In all of these cases the writers don't know what they are talking about and/or assume god like abilities to predict the future. IMHO the only worthwhile Editor's Choice is Catling's informed letter about broken legs. There is one worth reading.
Since my last post these choice bits if idiocy have appeared:
"In cases where a horse is to be euthanized after a race, the owner, trainer and jockey must be euthanized along with the horse." Wow - when a car wrecks lets kill everyone in the car. Emotional DRIVEL!
"I have lived with horses for twenty-five years and they run for two reasons -- they are afraid and running for safety or they are forced to run." This person must have been around OLD horses. Young animals (including humans) run for fun. Surely you remember that?
I am not splitting hairs when I call out an idiot letter that chastises "corporate owners" and other nonsense. The NASCAR reference is about the nature of the spectators not the participants. Pointing out the very interesting concept of "repeatedly dying" was an attempt at humor. Sorry you didn't get it.
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I know horses...PETA doesn't know squat...Track trainers and owners are the problem
I grew up on a ranch. My father is an equine veterinarian (that's a horse doctor)for 50 years and my mother was a horse trainer.
Race track trainers and owners are a separate subsegment of the horse world that many "horse people" are ashamed of. The horses are run way too young. Running a 3 year old horse in the Derby is the equivalent of putting a 13 year old kid in the Olympic 500 meter dash. It's a culture of training abuse and drugs that the rest of the horse world finds disgusting. There are a few glorious exceptions mind you.
PETA and veterinarians DO NOT get along. PETA has their own wacky agenda that is not based in reality. They want to blame the rider...proof they don't know a saddle from stirrup.
If 8 Belles death gets the track racing industry to clean up it's act then it will save the lives of THOUSANDS of horses.
Any journalist wants to talk to a real horse doc let me know.
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Bred to break down
You say you understand the revulsion, but your piece is lacking in an understanding of the most important facts.
Two issues are paramount: breeding and drugs.
The profit motive has damaged the breed and the sport. The WaPo did a better job at covering this story than any other source, here's Andrew Beyer. Takeaway point: racehorses race half as much as they did 40 years ago, and yet fatal breakdowns are much more common.
America's breeding industry is producing increasingly fragile thoroughbreds. They may not break down, but they have shorter and shorter racing careers before going to stud to beget even more fragile offspring.
The facts are irrefutable. In 1960, the average U.S. racehorse made 11.3 starts per year. The number has fallen almost every year, and now the average U.S. thoroughbred races a mere 6.3 times per year. Almost every trainer whose career spans the decades will acknowledge that thoroughbreds aren't as robust as they used to be.
There are at least two good explanations for this phenomenon. In earlier eras, most people bred horses in order to race them, and they had a stake in the animals' soundness. By contrast, modern commercial breeders produce horses in order to sell them, and if those horses are unsound, they become somebody else's problem. Because buyers want horses with speed, breeders have filled the thoroughbred species with the genes of fast but unsound horses.
As this change in the breeding world took place, the sport was allowing the use of pain-killers and other medications that are forbidden in most other countries. They allow infirm horses to achieve success, go to stud and pass on their infirmities to the next generation.
link http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/04/AR2008050401556.html