An update on Classic Empire was recently posted & people on social media are all up in arms about his weight and/or him possibly getting eaten 
I don’t see anything wrong with his weight (and it’s interesting that the social media posse usually complains that TB stallions are too fat.) As for eating a successful stallion whose worth is measured in seven figures, that’s just silly. 
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I mean, it pretty clearly says he has an injury. I have one who has weight fall off of him when he’s hurt. It’s a relatively poor photo & one I wouldn’t have chosen to post.
I also think the slaughter opinions are absurd.
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Oh I agree with both of you.
I just had to share it somewhere where people have common sense LOL
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What a load of xenophobic nonsense.
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You obviously are not familiar with South Korea’s “retirement” program.
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Horse is in perfect weight but everyone wants their horses to look like butterballs. South Korea does slaughter it’s excess horses though, and most of their non racing and non breeding horses are considered excess. So unless the owners of Classic Empire built in a safety net to his sales contract he would be at definite risk if for some reason he was unable to breed. Not saying that he will be but people being afraid for him is not based in hysteria. Go ask Private Vow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Vow I don’t know how successful their new program is since they say upfront that owners are not held to this program, it is voluntary.
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I don’t want to hear some xenophobic bull. It’s very common for stallions sold to Korea to be repatriated and they’re not going to slaughter a young stallion who, from all accounts, is still producing well.
Name them.
Colonel John
Any Given Saturday
Tizway
Take charge Indy
This was off the top of my head.
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Here’s an article about Colonel John as of August 2024:
https://www.truenicks.com/articles/279071/travers-winner-colonel-john-returns-home-to-winstar
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After reading your article (thank you!) I looked a bit online to see if a decision whether to breed him or not has been made. Didn’t find anything. Anyone know?
I don’t think it’s xenophobic to be concerned about the frequency of slaughter as an end of career option for horses in any country.
If someone overseas were critical of the horse slaughter pipeline in the US, I would not think they were being critical of our country, just of this practice. If I’m critical of horse slaughter in North America, I’m being consistent by opposing it elsewhere.
It may become common practice for stallions to be repatriated but I seriously doubt your average broodmare or racing prospect will return home after their careers are done.
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He is standing in Oklahoma for 2025.
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Until the slaughter pipeline from the U.S. is stopped, no one should be pointing fingers at other countries, unless you (in general) feel that some horses are more worthy (because they’ve sired some good racehorses or won more money on the track) to be humanely euthanized than others.
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Again, I think it’s consistent to say that one opposes horse slaughter in the US and everywhere else. It shouldn’t matter if the horse was a top level athlete or a feral pony and it shouldn’t matter if they are in the US, Mexico, Sweden, Ireland, Korea, or Japan.
I’m against horse slaughter, always have been. But I think it’s stinky of the connections to not put a bit of coin out to take care of their winner.
