It is a sad day
It is a sad day when my first entry in this blog to celebrate animals in the news, has to be about the death of the filly, Eight Belles, after her dramatic injury while running the Kentucky Derby.
Most of my entries I want to be hopeful, loving, beautiful stories about animals and the people who love them. However, this issue simply has to be addressed.
I expect there will be quite an uproar from the millions of people who only watch one horse event a year, and have never sat a horse in their life, or gone to a live horse race locally. PETA is already calling for an end to thoroughbred racing.
I feel about thoroughbred racing, and all horse racing, much the same as the way I feel about greyhound racing. There are good people and bad people involved in any endeavor - including any endeavor that involves animals. People who love their animals and can’t imagine their lives doing anything other than being with animals 24-7, and inevitably people involved with animals because they think it’s a way to make a quick easy buck (excuse me while I laugh long and hard here) and who could care less that animals are sentient beings with feelings, thoughts, and needs.
However, when it comes to horse racing in the United States, I have one huge complaint. We race our horses too hard, too young. A three year old horse is NOT fully grown and mature. Asking a three year old, let alone a two year old, and in some Quarter Horses races YEARLINGS to run and run hard - not to mention the months of conditioning previous to the race - is tantamount to asking your two year old child to train for the Olympics. You would never do that to your child - yet because of the economic realities of the highest paid and highest prestige races in the U.S. being for two and three year old horses - horse racing trainers regularily ask young horses for peak performance.
And the horses break down. The great heart of the Thoroughbred horse is that they will literally run themselves to death to win a race. The very nobility and strength of spirit that we so admire and love is what causes them to run themselves to death for us.
In other countries of the world, the highest paid and most prestigious horse racing events are for five and six year old and even older horses. We know that horses are mature and at their peak at the ages of seven to nine years, and can remain useful for many years after that. No other equestrian event expects horses at such a young age to be peak performers. And no other equestrian event - not even three day eventing - experiences the breakdowns - both spectacularily public and the many that happen every day in a quieter way that Thoroughbred racing in the United States causes.
We don’t need to stop racing horses. Humans have raced horses as long as we’ve been associate with them. Horses love to race - watch any herd as they dash around the pasture. There is always one or two who simply must be at the head of any herd.
What we need to do is stop racing babies.
Nuff said.
Summer Fey Foovay
If you are a horse lover, you will find horse articles and a human-edited directory of the best horse websites on the WWW at my website, JustHorseCrazy.com
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