I’m sorry, were these words not yours?
You flat out said we are shipping Derby runners and low end broodmares to slaughter or slaughter sales. I was countering your statement by acknowledging that is not the situation AT ALL. Your are distorting the story. This is a regional sale for thoroughbreds of mixed ages; the appropriate market for selling LA-bred stock. Yes, it is unfortunate that some of these horses have so little value that minimum bids are woefully low, which attracts the type of people who buy cheap horses. I agree with you that the low end of the thoroughbred market is a problem; but this also isn’t a problem unique to thoroughbreds. Over-breeding/poorly conceived breeding occurs in every single registry. It’s far more complicated than this particular incidence.
Merely pointing out that no horse, regardless of record, is immune to such fates. These stallions will land safely, I am sure. But many at this sale will not end up with such nice fates
I own a retiree who went through an on-track sale of racing age horses. Was a skimpy little sale of 10-20 horses in the shed row at one of the lower level tracks in this country. Many of the horses run through the “sale” were bought for kill, sent back to the kill lot not far from the track and disappeared. They were older horses, hard knockers, minimal wins. I knew of one of the horses personally and I was tipped off about her being sold that day. She was extremely well bred and well raced in her early career for one of the premier racing establishments in the country but for 5 years she fell to the bottom and stayed there. I couldn’t stand to see her end up in bad hands so I took her home that day for under $1000. She was sound and could’ve continued racing but decided after 9 years she had seen enough. Some horses did find homes with other trainers that day; most did not. I was convinced this was a sale held as a way to potentially dispose of some horses without them getting “caught” at the local sale barn which had high surveillance by animal activists. They were still sold on site at the track which allowed them to leave the premises as they did but they were never seen again.
It’s a sad world out there. Some people are better than others. At least in this country we have avenues to help these horses if we can and alert those organizations that can help. These stallions and broodmares sent to Japan, China, Korea, Russia, Puerto Rico etc don’t always end up with similar fates. That’s why I couldn’t ever breed anything myself and then put it through the sales ring and risk them being sold to a country like that. If I am going to breed, I breed to race and that is it; no running them through the sales arena. I couldn’t stomach that if the horse I bred and raised went across the pond either directly from the sale I sent it to or if it was resold as a 2 yr old in training sale.
You are “merely pointing out” things that everyone already knows, and being quite rude about it. I understand you feel passionately about the topic, but you’re also denigrating people’s livelihoods without consideration for the entire picture.
I guarantee you that every single person reading this thread has a story about a “rescued” thoroughbred or a thoroughbred who met an unfortunate fate. You are not unique. You are not telling us anything we don’t know.
You come across like everyone in racing is in the wrong; that everyone is a bad guy and no one is listening to you. My question is for you is: what are your proposed solutions? Because everyone who is actually involved in the sport understands that this is a complicated problem that cannot be corrected overnight; yet you seem to believe otherwise.
