Two more horses injured and euthanized at Churchill downs on Saturday
 

When is someone going to step up and stop this? Why are there no charges being filed against these people for pumping these horses full of drugs and racing them until they are dead?

It is time the people involved in this were put behind bars.

No offense meant here and I hope it doesn't come off as bad as it could sounds...but you obviously feel very strongly about this topic with how you've posted in various threads, so why don't you stop complaining about this on a message board and try to step up yourself?

I would like to ask a very sincere question.

14ers, was the first horse you have ever taken notice breaking down, Eight Belles?

He read about "Go For Wand" I bet

Is a short tragic live never worth living?

Excellent question.

Scott Kalitta died yesterday at the age of 46 drag racing when his Funny Car's engine exploded. Let's arrest the engine builder, parts manufacturer, and fuel supplier. :rolleyes:

Or do human deaths bother you less than equine ones?

I'm not sure what my opinion on horse racing is, but this comparison is ridiculous.

Racing drivers know full well the risks associated with their profession and realize they could die in any given race. They choose to accept the risks. I doubt horses realize that they could die during their races. Don't compare two totally different things.

Eight Belles was the third horse I had money on that has ended up euthanized on the track. I shouldn't be allowed near a racetrack.

There's been around 5000 horse deaths (800+ a year) in racing since 2003. I'm not sure what the answers are, but I would guess things like increasing the age to begin racing and monitoring horse size would be a decent start.

A subject dear to me (greyhounds) involves a much worse mortality rate (thousands a year), yet no one seems to care about those deaths. It seems to me that the well-being of dogs and horses bred for racing aren't a very big concern to society.

Clearly we have found the cause of all horse related deaths: :deadhorse:
(If we look at the camera, back and to the left, the yellow smiley is indeed from Fresno. Also, I'm surprised no one had used that smiley in this thread until now)

Save the horses! Euthanize Glengoyne now!

SI

2 more dead horses for 14er to beat on.

can we have that "smiley" be, like, set as 14er's tag?

I'm not so sure it isn't so much "no one cares" as it is "no one has figured out how to bring enough pressure to bear to lead to improved conditions".

Realistically, the odds of getting some action in that direction would almost certainly be improved if some of those greyhound deaths took place on national television. Sad but true.

I'm completely unaware of this...is it from similar causes as horses?

Greyhound racing isn't covered by the Animal Welfare Act in the U.S., so those involved can do pretty much what they want to with the animals (subject to "regulations" by the greyhound racing industry). Thus, either use your imagination, or google "greyhound racing" and let the Humane Society or other greyhound rescue groups do it for you.

The whole silliness here is that he's asking for people to be arrested that have broken no laws. Horse racing is legal, the drugs given to the horses are legal, the training methods are legal, etc. Instead of directing his anger at the horse racing industry, he should be directing his anger at lawmakers for allowing this to go on.

Everything Michael Vick was doing was legal too, Except for the Gambling right.:D


http://legal-dictionary.thefreedicti...Animal+cruelty
How is pumping horses full of drugs that will eventually kill them not cruelty to animals? One of the side effects of Winstrol is DEATH!!!

Arles is right. It is because nobody cares. They're just horses. People want to be entertained. If we lose a horse here and there, nobody loses any sleep over it.

Understood. I just wasn't sure if greyhounds "broke down" like we see with horses. I don't know, I guess I just see their bodies and don't see a snapping leg happening so easily.

Huh???

I wonder if 14ers is a vegetarian.

Chalk up one more to the ignore list.

What the hell are you talking about? That's got to be the most bizaare comparison made int his thread. There are specific statutes against dogfighting. There are also specific statutes against beating an animal to death. There is, however, no statute against horse racing (at least in the states where it is taking place), or using a legal steroid like Winstrol on a horse.

Please think before you respond next time.

It's not so much as a breakdown issue - it's the way they're treated between races and when their career is over.

It mostly happens behind the scenes, which is why you don't have people like 14ers leading a campaign against it.

14ers is strongly against all forms of animal cruelty that he randomly stumbles upon on television Sunday afternoons, as long as it involves no more effort than mouthing off on a message board.

At the risk of sending this thread on a useful tangent:

I have often wondered if we are on a path to destroy sports in this country...both human and animal. There is so much emphasis on performance, strength and speed that everybody is being pushed to the absolute limit. All of the protective equipment allows people to push even farther. Dogs and horses and bred to be fast and less durable. Football players are pushing themselves so hard that many can't walk by the age of 40. Everything always has to be bigger, faster and stronger. It makes me nervous that we may someday not have sport because we will have trained people and animals past their limits.

To the topic at hand - horses breaking down on the track and having to be euthanized seems less of a problem than owners that sell their horses to slaughter houses to be served at restaurants when they aren't fast enough anymore. I find that practice to be much more distasteful.

I think sports itself will be okay. Most sports we follow now are 100-200 years old, but sports itself has been around for thousands of years.

Sports is a way of celebrating human striving. As long as humans are striving, there will be sports.

I'm sure if it gets to that point, rules changes will be instituted to make it safer, not unlike when the forward pass was legalized because of a bunch of football deaths.

Heaven forbid! :D


I read a good editorial on this recently (though for the life of me I can't remember where) that raised the same points. The person was more specifically bemoaning the death of "nuance" in sports, or subtlety. We, especially Americans, have embraced "bigger, faster, stronger" as ways to win in sports so much so that it's greatly devalued the employment of strategy, tactics, or just general thought. That's not to say these things are gone, but that they have much less value than they used to.

If you're upset about the death of "nuance" in sports, might I suggest the NHL? The 2008 Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings are all about nuance and subtlety. While the entire NHL was moving towards "bigger, faster, stronger", the Wings went with skill. They play a game built on skill, puck possession, strategy, and sound tactics and defensive positioning.

The NHL is the way forward...

Stop prosyletizing, or else I'm going to have to talk about soccer ;).

Nah, today's sports are just the modern-era Coliseum. It's human instinct to want to see two people who are the best at what they do kill each other to be the one and only.

People forget that American football was nearly banned in1905 by Teddy Roosevelt after 19 players died playing the game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...rsy_.281905.29

But what if those same rules make the game "less exciting"? It seems like the performance vs. safety arms race has been going on for a while. Football players (as one of the more extreme examples) keep getting bigger and stronger to the point that they are straining the limits of their joints. How do you back that off through rules?

Soccer seems like one sport that will have more trouble letting players out-train their bodies. Bulk and strength don't necessarily help very much in that sport.

Popularity of sports ebb and flow with time. Some survive, others die out. Football survived earlier rule changes and will probably continue to do so. However, if football ever does need to change to a point where it becomes uninteresting, then the sports enthusiest will move on to something else that is more exciting.

Very true, but, of course, amphetamines probably would go a long way. In fact, the banning of those in baseball is being looked at as a cause of the rapidly increasing home field advantage that is developing (speculation is without greenies, players are more tired on cross country trips and unable to get as "up" as they generally have in the past).

I was wondering the same thing but he has fallen strangely quiet.

I hadn't thought about amphetamines, but baseball does have a long history of those. Drugs are definitely a problem in many sports, but a bit different than what I am wondering about. It is the training/breeding of the body beyond its own limits that has me wondering.

If anything, I think increasing home field advantage will help baseball, creating a better atmosphere and making it more of an event for the home fans.

I haven't read the rest of this thread, but injuries can happen quite easily in greyhound racing, particularly at the speeds the dogs race at.

There's good trainers and kennel owners and bad trainers and kennel owners, but the overwhelming majority of them are good.

As for what happens after their careers are over, greyhounds retire at young ages. Even the greats, who go the longest, generally retire at 5, maybe 6 years old at most.

That results in a lot of dogs, more than can be adopted out. I'll admit, I don't pretend to know what the answer is, but there's a lot of demonization of the greyhound racing industry that irks me, because much of the truly heinous activity is done by at most a handful of people.

Though I'll concede the fault in that lies in regulation and background checking that could certainly stand to be improved across state lines.

Come on, you can't be that naive. They are not giving this horse steroid injections because it is sick. :)

You do understand that these steroid injection will eventually kill this horse.

Well?

you have no idea if this is true or not


one day when the horses rule the land maybe you'll feel better

I never said that. I was responding to your idiotic claim that the Vick situation was anyway comparable to this.

You can ignore the facts all you want, but Winstrol is LEGAL. How the hell does injecting an animal with a legal drug = beating an animal to death.


If this is true (which you have offered no evidence to back up), then it's more reason you should be directing your outrage at lawmakers instead of asking people to be arrested for non-existent statutes.

Horses die, dogs die, people die, it's all part of the cycle of life. Some don't die in ways that someone might think is nice or acceptable, but, it happens. The real world is cold and ugly. Just because you don't like something, that doesn't automatically make it wrong.

I personally don't like horse racing, not because I'm a tree hugging animal lover, it's because I find it extremely boring and find it of no interest. I could really care less how fast a midget on horse can go in a circle on top of animal that delivers beer. If the horses are being abused, then yes, something should be done about it. If what's going is legal, it's legal. You don't have to like that it's legal and you can complain about it all you want. Heck, you can even try to change it if you wanted to by soliciting your elected representatives. Welcome to America!!!

BTW, the use of :) or anything like that to punctuate an argument is one of my biggest pet peeves around here. It doesn't make your argument look better. It just makes you look like an ass.

Your momma! :) :) :)

Do I win now?

I think it is a way to point out they are arguing in a friendly manner so that people don't take shit personally.

That's not the way I generally see it used around here, and I certainly don't think it is the way 14ers was using it in this thread.