Sorry Horse Racing, You Suck
I have never paid attention to horse-racing ever in my life, but the events of this past weekend have got the wheels spinning a little in my head.
So Eight Belles, one of the horses running in the Kentucky Derby, broke two ankles during the race and was euthanized on the racetrack. My reaction was to immediately question why this horse couldn’t simply have been allowed to live and see her ankles heal and simply hang out in a field the rest of her life. What I found online is that horses generally can’t heal from broken legs and ankles, and not euthanizing a horse after such an injury would actually amount to torture as the healing process for a horse is very painful and oftentimes fatal.
So naturally, my second question was – seriously? If these injuries, which you hear about often enough for the general public to know racehorses are euthanized, are relatively common, why do we have horse racing at all? Isn’t that somewhat needless?
And again the Internets provided the answer. Horses run in the wild as well, and they in fact race each other naturally, so doing so on a track is pretty much giving them a place to do it, and also allows people to get some enjoyment and cash out of it. OK, that makes sense I suppose. There seems to be some acknowledgment that breeding racehorses does result in animals that are a bit more likely to break a bone, and while that doesn’t exactly seem ethical, I’m really not an expert on the matter, and it’s hard for me to judge what’s really acceptable without being very well acquainted with the sport.
Now if you know me, then you probably know where I’m going next. What is the major difference between supporting horse racing, a sport in which animals are bred to be more likely to die than they would be in the wild, and dogfighting, a sport in which animals are bred to be more likely to die than they would be in the wild? How are clips of dogfights shown on CNN with a warning, but the Kentucky Derby is nationally televised to an adulating audience? Why are dogfight losers considered “brutally” killed, and Eight Belles was “euthanized?” How does Michael Vick get 23 months in prison, but the owner of Eight Belles gets a letter from PETA?
And as usual, I’m not advocating for the filly’s owner to be tried as a criminal and locked up, I’m just saying, there’s somethign a little uneven here, and if you just think about what types of folks tend to be into horse racing, and what types of folks tend to be into dogfighting, and I’m just saying, the different way they get treated has more than a little bit to do with the race and relative wealth of the audience.
Tags: sports
May 6th, 2008 at 9:05 PM
Your point is supported by the fact that horseracing is known as the Sport of Kings. I’ve never heard anybody refer to dogfighting or even greyhound racing as the Sport of Anything With A Capital Letter, let alone Kings.
May 7th, 2008 at 12:11 AM
i think it’s booty that because horse racing is a whiteman sport it’s acceptable. hmmm….I wonder what people think of cock fighting? Atleast you can have chicken for supper.
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:43 PM
Actually, the thing is, a horse CAN heal from a broken limb. It just means the
horse needs to be in a sling for a long time and cared for. Which is usually
very expensive.
Thing is, people who own race horses are usually rich. They can afford to try
and heal a hurt horse. But they don’t – because it’s too expensive and because
there’s no money in it for them (even if the horse heals, it probably will never
race again).
Which to me, is pretty damn cruel.
And yet, because wealthy white folks do it, no one pulls a Michael Vick.
Oh, this racism is killing me inside.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:50 PM
you know what’s messed up, there’s no mention of that as a possibility in the (admittedly limited) research i did on the internets.
it’s like it’s such an inconvenience that it’s even outside the realm of fantasy.
October 17th, 2008 at 1:54 PM
The fact that you are comparing horse racing to dog fighting is ridiculous. Horses are not bred to race to the death, like fighting dogs a bred to fight to the death. Thoroughbreds naturally have thinner lighter weight bones than other horses, making them able to run so fast for a long amount of time but making their bones a little more fragile. Horses in general are very fragile animals, one wrong step even out in a pasture could result in a broken bone. Horses don’t recover well from even one broken leg, two broken legs would be torture to the animal. Their legs are the most critical part of their bodies. They can’t just stay laying down for long amounts of time for their bones to heal cause they will colic. Also having so much more weight on the other 2 legs would end up causing infection in those legs as well. So you would be battling possible infections in all 4 legs and 2 broken bones. They would need to be hung in a sling until the bones are healed enough for weight to be applied. They are prone to infections that can be fatal. To just blame the owners for not wanting to spend the money is absurd. They would rather not see their horse be in that much pain. If the horse would recover well they would rather keep them alive for breeding purposes. Eight Belles was an excellent filly and would most like have made a fortune in the breeding world. The fact is, it would have been cruel to keep her alive. Eight Belles shattered both of her front ankles, the amount of screws, plates, and metal that would have been used to repair her ankles would be insane and her body would most likely reject the metal causing even more pain for her. And it is just retarded that you are turning this into a racist thing. White people partake in dog fighting as well, just like different races partake in horse racing. The fact is Michael Vik was purposely breeding dogs to fight and kill, that is why he went to jail. If the racing board found drugs in Eight Belles that would cause her to not notice the pain and still run, there would have been charges to her owner. Her broken bones was just a result of a miss step when pulling her up from the run, it was no ones fault, it was an accident, simple as that.
October 17th, 2008 at 2:43 PM
“Eight Belles was an excellent filly and would most like have made a fortune in the breeding world.”
because horses understand the concept of money?
while informative, this response doesn’t convince me that horse racing is any more humane than dogfighting.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:18 AM
The point was that you can’t say that the reason the owners put her down because she wouldn’t make them money. They put her down because it would have been torture for her to live with 2 broken ankles, if she didn’t end up with infections in all of her legs anyway.
Horses are NOT bred/trained to race themselves to death, kill other animals, and be a threat to the people they encounter.
The racing world goes to great lengths to make sure the horses are trained/raced humanely, so they will not be harmed.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:35 AM
Is there room for improvement within the horse industry? Absolutely. But, irregular accidents do happen. Those should not be considered the norm. Still, I think one thing that would help significantly would be to wait an extra year before horses are able to run. They are still quite young, and haven’t matured – so they can be susceptible to injuries that a more mature horse wouldn’t be prone to.
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:12 PM
yes horse racing is a live threating deal with the horse and jockey, and some owners put down the horse when this type of injury happens BUT look at Barbro’s owner, he tried to save this horse and give him another chance in life. horse racing is thriling to watch, can you not agree, watching them streach for the wire and when the wining horse relizes that he won, u can see his face light up. so it is not bad at all, yes it has dangers to it but does not all sports have dangers to them? example, horse jumping, cross country/track. ?
December 15th, 2008 at 7:43 PM
horses shouldent b e raced at all because the horses legs arnt strong enough to
support the horse and they arnt fully grown until there five years old. i mean yea
you can ride them at two but you shouldent race them until there at least 4 or five