[QUOTE=saratoga;7097139]
Its really a very simple concept- the race horse is at real risk of a crippling injury or death every time it runs. The dressage horse, hunter, endurance horse, etc. is not.
Its difficult for me to understand how someone could fail to grasp that concept.
I think that most people who read this forum enjoy horse racing. I know I do-its been a part of my life since i was a kid. I love Tbs. But as a person who loves horses, the breakdowns are very upsetting. danceronice, you seem to be very thick-skinned and that is not necessarily a bad thing, but realize that a lot of people have more compassion for animals than you do, which isnt bad either.[/QUOTE]
Really? I’ll believe that when they stop needing joint “maintenance” and when we know each and every drug a horse is getting at shows, there are no eventing fatalities, and all those elderly horses who’ve ‘earned their retirement’ are out in a field no later than age twelve because clearly that’s just ancient. I don’t know what kind of racehorses you’re watching or handling, but here’s the thing: they don’t all have horrible injuries or retire because they’re injured (Lucky ran 64 times and all he has to show for it is some minor arthritis, with no long layoffs, no injuries, and he’s not unusual, let alone unique), the overwhelming majority run each race and come out fine every day on tracks across the country, they do not all need to “detox”, they know a lot more than “walk” and “run”…and at least running is something they evolved to do, unlike leaping over big obstacles with a heavy weight on their back (heavier than most racehorses ever carry, anyway) with all their body weight slamming onto their front legs which were not meant to take that kind of strain. Seriously, racing is bad because it causes wear and tear, and we have how many threads in every discipline forum about this or that lameness, unsoundness, NQR-ness of horses who never set foot on a racetrack? PPEs with x-rays out the wazoo and people acting surprised that a horse that’s been asked to work for years, no matter what it’s doing, isn’t blemish-free?
Just letting a horse out in a field puts it at risk of catastrophic injury and death. They’re horses. They break easy and they’re prone to doing self-destructive thing to boot. What people really dislike about racing is unlike chasing pretty ribbons, it’s honest about the money involved. Horses in claimers have a price tag anyone can see. Racing exists pretty much solely because of gambling. The everyday levels where the “working-class” operators are is out in the open-that’s where the action is most days and what most horseplayers follow. All aspects of horses involve business unless you’re purely a backyard home owner who doesn’t lesson or show (and that’s not bad, I’m one of those) but racing is open about it-there’s no pretending you’re asking a ‘question’ rather than putting a horse to a task and getting him to do it, being coy about pricing, or pretending that a trainer is a guru or a buddy rather than someone who makes a living training horses and the best ones get the most clients and money because the clients want to win, not for some noble artistic purpose, or that at the end of the day all sport horses are being used to gain something. Racing is up front that it’s about winning and money and I think that really bothers the Black Beauty & Friends set who want to kid themselves about it. It’s easier to convince yourself that claimers are being “dumped” because there’s a tag right there than to admit that the horse at the BNT’s barn who couldn’t ribbon reliably any more got sold down to a not-so-fancy home to “keep teaching” was really sold off because it wasn’t winning at the level the owner and trainer wanted any more. Or the pony needs a ‘new little girl’, not that the old one lost interest or outgrew it and now they don’t want the feed bill. Or the twentysomething on CL is REALLY good for “4-H, barrels, anything!” rather than “we used it and now it can’t do what we want so please, someone buy it so we can stop paying for it.” Dropping through conditions is an open statement saying “This horse is capable of this level right now and we now would move him on if someone’s interested.” Finding racing horrifying because horses might get hurt and because there are races openly about selling on horses isn’t being compassionate about animals. It’s being in denial that any time you ask a horse to carry a human around you’re risking it getting injured and that any aspect of the horse business comes down to value for money.
There are some people who casually dispose of horses as you describe. It’s true other people turn a blind eye, but we all know who they are, and they’re not respected. My trainer is an FEI trainer, and I have friends who are FEI trainers. None of them practices your “three years and out” rule. Fwiw.
