Fuck PETA

Horse racing is inherently cruel.

Racing in general when it involves animals is cruel. Unless it's snail racing. That shit is great.

What Devin said. Despite my discomfort with their approach at times, I'm in fundamental agreement with many of PETA's beliefs. Horse racing is a brutal sport. I think it's terribly sad that this poor animal was ridden to death.

Also, I really don't think it was necessary to call the PETA spokeswoman a "cunt" and/or implied that she should be murdered. I don't really see how that furthers your argument or makes you appear to have any sort of high ground here. Bad form.

You aren't a veterinarian, have little to no experience with horses, and from the beginning appear pretty uneducated as to what a ridiculously inhumane sport horseracing is.

Paging Belethedheliel...

It could be worse....they could be branded with sponsor logos.

But yeah, horsies are cute.

If horse racing is so cruel, where was PETA before the horse died?

I think they've been talking about the drug aspect for a long time.

I don't hold much opinion on this, I think PETA has some decent principles, but are far too out in left field to do a good job getting their point across. This link sums it up pretty good I think.


http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008/...iricos-questi/

Awesome point! They are like the anti abortionists who only care about children in the womb. Once they're born they are on their own!

It's not the jockey's fault that the horse was ridden to death, he is just one factor in a completely flawed and brutal system.

Take on the system and I'll support you, but attacking an individual is weak sauce and is doing nothing to further your cause.


Horseracing is stupid.

PETA ends up euthanizing 85% of the animals they save to begin with.

Somewhere, reading this article, Alanis Morissette's head is exploding.

Exactly Justin.

Animals are awesome.

PETA is a fucking sham.

Well, it just seems to me that if their position is that horse racing is cruel, the most famous horse race in the world would be an ideal place to make that point WITHOUT waiting for a horse to actually die in it. Now PETA may have had a presence at Churchill Downs before the race, but this statement makes it seem like they really didn't care until Eight Belles went down.

Well, how about looking into it before second guessing them and writing weird SAT-sound questions like the following:

"If horse racing is so cruel, where was PETA before the horse died?"

I mean, we do treat animals like shit in this country. And in the world. Hating PETA is just a small part of that equation.

PETA also supports terrorism. I'm not kidding. I'm pro-animal rights in many respects (I fall into the "we probably don't need to do animal testing with eyeliner, but when it comes to potential AIDS vaccines, shut up about animal rights" camp), but the PETA people bother me, particularly when there are several much more rational, humane animal rights groups out there.

My Fiancé’s parents run a horse and pony sanctuary, they have an ex racehorse there who has recovered nicely from a career ending injury (which normally results in them being put down). So personally I think there is no excuse to put them down when they can't race any more.

Having said that when I first went to see the ranch the horses are on I was more shocked to learn that a fair few coal mines still use ponies to pull the coal back up out of the mines.

You rang?

I'd like to know why it is that everyone has decided that horse racing is inherently cruel. (I'm not saying it necessarily isn't, but as far as I can tell, few of you have intimate knowledge of the sport, so I'm wondering what lead you to the conclusion.) Or, for that matter, all animal racing. Is show jumping cruel? Dressage? Trail riding? Having a horse turned out in a backyard pasture?

Ankle injuries can heal given time - personally I'm not a vet and I’ve never seen a double ankle injury on a horse but in most cases it comes down to the owners not having the money or inclination to pay for the treatment when the horse is no longer of value.

This right here. While I'm on board with what PETA stands for, I'm also uncomfortable with the way they go about things at times. And really, I think it's their approach, not what they stand for (which I agree with), that gives them a bad name.

I don't know the ins and outs of the business, but I'm sure the horses we saw on Saturday are cared for extremely well. They're a sizeable investment, both for the time they're racing and for breeding purposes afterwards, and considering the time and money put into raising and training them, an owner would have to be catastrophically stupid to treat them badly.

Now, the horses running down at the track every Saturday night at Pimlico? That could be a different story.

The horse broke both front legs. There is no fixing that.

Horses have to be able to stand. If they only have 2 legs, they can't stand. If they lay down for really extended periods of time, their own body weight crushes the muscles along their torso, shoulder and hip (because they're round and their weight is focused on a small area). This causes the release of the contents of the muscle cells, which as it is excreted, damages the kidneys. It causes large sores and abscesses along the body, not to mention added pain. Within a few weeks, you're likely to have a horse in kidney failure with systemic infection from the large number of open sores exuding dead muscle. Thus, horses have to be able to stand. This is why two broken front or rear legs = euthanasia.

This is also why Barbaro was put down; his one rear leg did not heal comfortably enough to stand on, and his other rear leg broke down from the strain of standing on 3 legs. With 2 non-functioning, painful rear legs = euthanasia.

ETA: Also, how is putting down your horse when you can't afford treatment different than putting down your dog or cat when you can't afford treatment? We have the capacity to do kidney transplants in cats, yet people still put down their cats with kidney failure for lack of the $15,000 -ish cost. How is that different than putting down a horse for want of $8500+ for colic surgery, or the tens to hundreds of thousands spent on a horse like Barbaro?

There are certainly in all aspects of animal ownership the limited few who take bad care of their animals - just like there are some bad parents (see Josef Fritzl).

However, even your backyard racehorse owners have a large investment in their horses. In fact, for the backyard racehorse owner, their investment is usually proportionately larger: they tens of thousands they spend out of pocket is a larger chunk of their income than it is to the wealthy owner.

I have clients who built their barns by hand using the left over pieces of out-of-business racing stables, who train their horses in their own backyard track, and haul the horse into the track for race day. Their race horses are their most valuable horses, and they treat them as such. They stay up all night in the barn if they are sick, and worry over them.

Someone who makes maybe $100K a year and has a horse worth $35K or more -- that's a really big deal to them. It may not be a big deal to the people buying $400K horses, but to them it is their most valuable and cared for animal.

I'm no expert on Horses - i'll leave that to the future In laws but I have read about cases where (the richer) horse owners will put an animal down simply because it will no longer make them money.

Having seen some of what their charity is trying to stop and the good work it has done I guess the some of it has rubbed off on me.

Having seen plenty of "rescues" which "saved" horses which needed to be put down, or which were in no risk of being put down (but were dramatized for the sake of getting donation money), or which were simply collectors with a yard full of neglected horses, I guess I put less stock in the opinion of "rescuers" than you do.

If the horse has value, why would they spend money to put it down, rather than sell it down the road? Many, many people buy or are given horses which can no longer be raced but which have some athletic potential, in order to rehabilitate them as riding horses. I have not yet seen an owner want to put down a horse which has an athletic future outside of racing. Particularly the less sentimental owners: they want whatever money they can get, and selling the horse for $500 is much better than paying $500 to have it put down and hauled away.

Again, I don't doubt that in the history of racing, some fed-up owner has said "screw it, put her down." Generally, though, you run them in a claims race, turn them into a broodmare, or give them to your neighbor's kid who wants a low level jumper.

I'd go with her view on this. She's a horse doctor after all.

I don't know what to say to that, I don't know if you are implying that most charities over dramatise or that they simply treat the rescued horses badley.

All I can say is the one I have contact with treats the resuced animals very well. They do not live in yards but instead have huges areas of land to roam over in one of the most peaceful locations I have ever been.

I have to just derail for a second to say that, as sad as this topic is, this is really interesting information. I never knew all that, and I admit I'm one of these people who never understood why a horse has to be put down for a broken leg.

I had heard that horses shouldn't sit down, but holy hell, I had no idea it was that life threatening. Glad to have an expert in the field here to keep the conversation relatively grounded.

CHUD: bitch about movies AND learn a thing or two about horse racing. Gotta love it here.

Actually having re read your post Im pretty sure thats not what you meant. I'm just over sensitive being involved in a horse rescue charity thats all.

Plus I spent all day yesterday mucking out stables and ripping down old roofs to help make better facitliies for the animals so ignore me.

Plus, Eight Belles had compound fractures in both front ankles. The size and location of those bones are such that even if they could be put in a cast and mended, it'd be pretty unlikely they could safely bear any weight afterwards.

What I am saying is that most "horse rescues" don't rescue horses. The vast majority of them "save" horses which didn't need saving (as in they buy or are given horses and resell/"adopt out" them later, but call themselves "rescue" rather than "horse trader"), they save "unsavables" (large yards of suffering lame horses which they refuse to put down), or they otherwise aren't really contributing to the world of horses. I have never personally seen a well-run horse rescue. I understand from my colleagues that one or two exist (and I mean literally, I have heard from 2 colleagues that serve "good" rescues). Of the hundreds if not thousands of horse vets with whom I correspond via email, none of the rest of us have seen a legitimate horse rescue. To give you an idea, I know of five or six "rescues" that operate in my practice area.

Also, yard is a term for an enclosure for livestock (yard definitions 2 and 3a from Merriam Webster: 2. the grounds immediately surrounding a house that are usually covered with grass; 3 a: an enclosure for livestock (as poultry)). Depending on the size and nature of the enclosure, terms such as box, stall, casita, run, paddock, yard, turnout, pasture, pen, lot and field are used in the horse industry.

I don't know your in-laws or the facility they run. I'm just saying that I don't take the second hand word of "horse rescuers" as gold. Also, why mention that you spent a day mucking stalls, etc?

People for the
Eating of
Tasty
Animals.

Horses suck, there's no point to them anymore - this aint the wild west, buy a bike. The french eat them and they have the best cuisine in the world (or so I hear). The only people I know who like horses are spoiled brats who want to suck on horse cock, nothing wrong with that, but let's not pretend it's something else.

If they could heal, they could bear weight. The fact is, they could not heal.

ETA: Article describing return to use in unilateral, repaired, lateral condylar fractures of metacarpal 3 in horses.

One of the legs was an open, contaminated fracture. That means that it had broken through the skin and had dirt, etc on it. This means you can't put metal plates or rods in the bone, as they can only be used in a sterile environment. This makes the chance of success much lower, as you have the break, infection, open wound, and a lot of damage to the supporting structures.

And, as mentioned above, if you have two broken front legs, the horse is simply unsavable. Unless you know of a way to magically levitate a horse in a non-weight-bearing manner for a few months.

Also, on the fracture repair front...

You know those plates people get put on their broken legs across the fracture site to stabilize the two ends of the bone? Guess how much weight they can hold. Eight hundred pounds. Now guess how much Eight Belles weighs. That's right, more than eight hundred pounds. It's not like you can just whack a plate or a rod onto the bone and the horse walks off.

For horses to survive a fracture, it must be in a location which can be stabilized using pins, rods, screws, plates, and/or casts. When casted, the cast must extend to the joint above and below the break (for an "ankle" that would be hoof to "knee"). The horse must then stand on it - without laying down until it is fully healed. That's a few months. It must be stable enough and comfortable enough to have the horse stand on it immediately after repair.

The majority of horse long bone breaks have less than 50% chance of survival.

In fact, Chelokee, who simply dislocated an ankle, has about a 50/50 chance.

I was explaining why I being a bit cranky that was all.

I'm guessing you are in the US right? Here in the UK a charity could not survive pulling some of the tactics you have mentioned. And your are right you don't know them or anything about what they do - (as I mentioned the majority of their work is rescuing pit ponies and abused horses) so I would be grateful if you didn't tar all charities with the same brush.

And I’ll leave it at that.

It's too bad a day of physical labor is enough to make you cranky. Maybe you should try it more often.

I'll certainly ask around, but the last time we had the "horse charities aren't very charitable" discussion none of my UK or European colleagues claimed to have a different finding. Perhaps none of them are involved with any such rescues.

I don't know why you have such a hard time with the concept of a small charity doing a lot of very good work but I guess that's your problem not mine.

Fact is you obviously have some very strong views based on a bad experince. You seem like a good person so I suggest you sit back, relax and try to remember you don't know everything.

Beth, for someone who's always up Devin's jock about his attitude, you sure do treat people like they're stupid a lot of the time.

I don't have a problem with the idea of a small charity doing a lot of good work. I do have a problem with you, in your brief experience, painting a large segment of the horse owning population with a brush of meanness in suggesting they will simply put down less than profitable or injured horses.

Your experience is based on having friends in the horse rescue business. Perhaps they are the most wonderful and charitable people in the world, but apparently they have given you some very mean ideas about horse owners. Has it occured to you that their sample is biased, because they see the meanness in those from whom they acquire abused or neglected animals?

I have seen plenty of starved, beaten, neglected horses. I've had clients wait 5 days after a horse broke it's leg to call me to come and see it. However, I have enough experience to know that those people are in the minority, not the majority, and do not presume all horse owners are like that.

If you find my expression of my experience with "horse rescues" offensive, perhaps you should consider how your expression of experience with horse owners is offensive, too.

ETA: I am sitting, I'm quite relaxed, and I've never claimed to know everything. Perhaps you should try not making so many assumptions. Also, this year's d'Anjou pears are really quite tasty.

While she may not know everything there is to know about everything, I'm going to have to say that in this situation, Beth probably has several legs up on all of us.

What he said. I've learned a lot from your posts, Beth (count me as one of those who didn't know why a broken leg = euthanasia). Thanks.

I'm looking at it like this. Clearly she's got a very passonite view on horses and their treatment because it's her job and probably her life. I'm sure Savage has a point also. She's not broadbrushing all charities or "rescues" but who here hasn't heard of some "charity" ripping off or doing a shit job. This isn't unheard of.

Fact is, let's calm down here and hold our mud.

Hey, now, just because horses occupy 60-80 hours of my work week, plus some spare time for my little pet pony, and being on-call 24/7, doesn't mean they're my entire life.

Do you own any shirts with airbrushed drawings of horses on them?

I have ones with block print or screen print, and one with a hand painted horse. I did not buy any of them; they were all gifts. I do not wear them.

And remember who we're really after in this thread: PETA!