All in the name of sport * WARNING*

I do enjoy racing & fully accept no horse sport (including happy hacking) is abuse free. Yes as an animal many seem to find ways to hurt themselves without human help, but this is a genuine discussion so found the popcorn comment to be unhelpful to the discussion. Fluffy bunnies are entitled to discuss a subject as much as anyone else, that you do not wish to participate constructively is sad, as I'm sure your opinion would be a valuable addition.

The way I see racing is horses are treated as commodities (as in other sports), which is especially prevelent where large sums of money are concerned. Money is more important to many people than the horses that make it for them. As such sales such as this are used to sell goods, the harm to the animal is not a consideration. The deaths are seen as percentage losses which are unavoidable.

I would like to see the minimum racing age to be increased to 3 yrs old, so they don't enter training until aged 2. Unfortunately this will never happen, because of money. Money means more to people. I don't enjoy watching 2 yr olds race, & would never bet in such a race. It may be tiny, but this is all I can do to show my dislike of juvenile racing, by not putting money into it. Am I a fluffy bunny? Probably. If it was so good for racehorses to work hard as juveniles, why don't NH horses (that don't start in flat racing first) get started this way? I have a young endurance horse, how do I plan to give her a long, sound career? Not back her until she is reasonably mature (5), take it steady, not do excessive mileage & keep speeds steady. I will be avoiding excessive wear at speed. This seems more in keeping with the NH philosophy?
 
Last edited:
Aces_High said:
Yes we do have Breeze Ups in the UK but they are not run quite how the Yanks do it.
Click to expand...

So in these breeze ups, obviously on the video it looks like nearly every horse breaks down or dies, but does the speed they are going at increase the percentage that have these injuries or is it on a par to 'normal' racing?

I agree that things are probably very different in the US, but then I found things very different over here when I moved over. Some things that happen seem awful when seen with 'British eyes' but you soon see that the animals are actually just as happy and healthy kept in this different manner and are no worse off.
 
I would just like to say that if that clip shows what i think it shows then i have no desire to watch it. It will upset me and I will have nightmares.

whatever we do in life carries risk - horses in fields can trip and break legs, one of mine years ago fell in the stable and broke his pelvis - accidents happen. I could go into town and get knocked down.

If people want to race, hunt, jump XC then thats their choice - all I ask is that the horses/animals are protected to prevent/minimise the risks of any accidents happening. Unfortunately Accidents will always happen.
 
Hmmm it’s a hard for me to comment on this subject really as horses break legs during eventing for example but of course in some cases some horses will brake down purely because they have been taken to the limit, these horses will give you there all and more, so it is very sad, very sickening in fact to see the consequences when they do.

I for one don’t know anything about the horses in these clips, so again it’s not something that can be judged without knowing all the facts.

Hand on heart, if I saw that happen on a regular basis then I would no longer support the racing industry but like everything else when it comes to horses, there are things in all aspects of the equestrian world that we don’t agree with or have cruel practices but equally there are folk that do their best by their horses.

Also for all we know, perhaps the trainer, owner and the rest of the racing staff of these horses on these clips were equally as upset, yes they may of hardened to it a bit more but it doesn’t mean they are heartless human beings who think nothing to one of their well bred horses who they have put many hours into there training coming to such as end.
 
I hate horse racing. It's as simple as that. How anyone can love horses and yet still like horse racing is beyond me. This may not happen in every race but it's still not right. All of those poor youngsters who have lost their lives before it even got started is sickening. Very very sad and distressing video!
 
lionman said:
As for how racehorses are kept, and the people that think that it is unnatrual for them to be stabled most of the day, it is for a very short period of their lives and that regime is the safest and most practicle way to keep them.
Click to expand...
Funnily enough 'Natural' isn't my reason for questioning the stabling and feeding practices as I understand them, well not the only reason. Performance, fit strong bodies and good general health are my main concerns where horses are expected to perform extremely.
Would a human athlete stay in an equivalent space and only come out for exercise or to perform? I'm sure there are sound physical and physiological reasons why this isn't done with humans and humans aren't programmed to spend as much time moving as horses...

As well as the young age horses are asked to perform to (and beyond) their limits I'm wondering how much our practices actually disadvantage them physically and wonder how many injuries could be prevented by looking openly and truthfully at our practices. That's all...

I haven't even mentioned the emotional and psychological effects...

For what it's worth I don't believe SPORT should accept death and injury of horse or rider as 'just part of it' or 'an acceptable risk'. If it does then for me it is no longer sport...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
amandap said:
For what it's worth I don't believe SPORT should accept death and injury of horse or rider as 'just part of it' or 'an acceptable risk'. If it does then for me it is no longer sport...
Click to expand...

Do you ride? If so you are risking yours and your horses life every single time you get on. Admittedly the risks are lower than if you were racing, but they are still there.
 
Katikins said:
Do you ride? If so you are risking yours and your horses life every single time you get on. Admittedly the risks are lower than if you were racing, but they are still there.
Click to expand...
Yes, but I don't see the relevance of your question. I don't see riding per se as necessarily harmful though I believe it can be.

Of course riding is a risk but I'm not going to ride a new horse down a busy road am I? I prepare carefully both in management and training to reduce the risks as low as I can get them...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Katikins said:
So in these breeze ups, obviously on the video it looks like nearly every horse breaks down or dies, but does the speed they are going at increase the percentage that have these injuries or is it on a par to 'normal' racing?

I agree that things are probably very different in the US, but then I found things very different over here when I moved over. Some things that happen seem awful when seen with 'British eyes' but you soon see that the animals are actually just as happy and healthy kept in this different manner and are no worse off.
Click to expand...

I think the most important thing to remember is that horses can race on certain drugs in USA. They are also given steroids hence they look a different to the UK TB's. The problem with galloping and or racing a drugged horse you cannot tell if it has a stress fracture (might be showing lameness of tenderness on palpation of a specific area) which could lead to a break. In this video it shows a complete fracture - there might have been a niggle there before or they might not have. In the yards I have worked and run the horses lower legs are checked 3 sometimes 4 times a day. All the horses are trotted up prior to any canter work and there is a vet present both morning and evening stables so any queries can be presented.

This video has been edited so that it looks like it is all from one sale. I can promise you that all of that footage is not from the same sale. The horses are breezed as 2 year olds not as yearlings. We (in racing) refer to breaking in yearlings etc the majority are all at least 18-20 months old.

The problem with breeze ups is that the vendors feel that the quickest time to be breezed - (one horse did 9 3/5 seconds for a furlong) will make it more valuable in the sales ring. They will be sold a couple of days after having been breezed.

I would say travelling an immature horse even for 200M at 9 3/5's seconds is pretty disgusting. I think that it would have been the speed it was travelling which caused it to break a leg. Also if it had placed it's foot slightly unlevel that also could have caused the fracture. The top flight Group 1 sprint horses in the UK and abroad would be running 5 furlongs (1000M) in under one minute. Miss Andretti (AUS) set the record at Royal Ascot in running the Kings Stand in around 57 seconds. You are looking at 11.4 for an average furlong (200M) there will obviously be a couple of quicker furlongs than that, I've just split it by 5 for you to get a rough idea. So I think the answer is no flat racehorses in the world will not be needing to run at sub 10 seconds and if they do it would never be for more than a very short distance.
 
Truly horrific video bringing tears to my eyes! But i have see WITH MY OWN EYES this happen to my own mare simply used at the time for hacking and dressage exactly like the video her cannon bone fracture and punctured through the skin leaving the leg detached and dangling - just while out in the field and under her own steam! At the end of the day you can find gruesome facts about anything involving humans or animals but i bet no one had made a video of the horse injury’s while out on the hunting field or in the driving world? It happens and its horrid but its not JUST racing!
 
Aces_High said:
I think the most important thing to remember is that horses can race on certain drugs in USA. They are also given steroids hence they look a different to the UK TB's.
Click to expand...

OK, I did not realise that. That I do not agree with at all.


Aces_High said:
I would say travelling an immature horse even for 200M at 9 3/5's seconds is pretty disgusting. I think that it would have been the speed it was travelling which caused it to break a leg. Also if it had placed it's foot slightly unlevel that also could have caused the fracture. The top flight Group 1 sprint horses in the UK and abroad would be running 5 furlongs (1000M) in under one minute. Miss Andretti (AUS) set the record at Royal Ascot in running the Kings Stand in around 57 seconds. You are looking at 11.4 for an average furlong (200M) there will obviously be a couple of quicker furlongs than that, I've just split it by 5 for you to get a rough idea. So I think the answer is no flat racehorses in the world will not be needing to run at sub 10 seconds and if they do it would never be for more than a very short distance.
Click to expand...

Thank you for explaining that, that puts the speeds into much better perspective. Sub 10 seconds for a furlong does seem excessively fast then which would obviously increase the chances of injuries and fatalities.

However, I don't take back any comments regarding the video. It is still edited to be as senstationalist as possible and showing these kind of things without an unbiased background and explaination helps nobody... including the horses.
 
At 10am this morning one my horses was put to sleep on the yard. He had broken his plevis last year and I nursed him through 10 weeks of cross tying, a further 6 weeks of stable rest before 2months in a field. He was not a pleasant horse to deal with if you were scared of him - he loved to make you scared but I clicked with him. I fed him, groomed him, mucked him out and treated him like a king while he was stuck inside. No one else would go near him. He came back into work and was 4 weeks away from racing when he fractured the other side of his pelvis. So we put him back in the box to fix him so he could go on and have a life as a happy hacker. He didn't mind the box rest as he terrorized everone that walked past him for the fun of it. We gave him 3 months and he just was not fixing at all and so this morning he was put down. He got to come out of his stable, stand in the middle of a big grassy field and look off into the distance while he was being injected. He couldn't have been happier for his fianl moments. I am sitting here in tears as you can't help but get attached to these horses and even though no one particularly liked him they will never forget him because he was such a character. I loved him, he was a class apart. I could do anything with him and many a time did I just sit with him and my troubles melted away. At the end of the day it was the right thing to do for him. We gave him every possible chance to heal and he just wasn't. I've spent the last 15months being friends with that horse and like hell was I letting anyone else hold him while he went. I owed him that much at the very least.

If anyone thinks that those of us who work in racing are heartless and hardened to horses dying then plese come say Hi! I can bloody well assure you we aren't. Some of the biggest, hardest tough nuts in the game are reduced to quivering wrecks when their horses are injured or die.

We accept it as part of the sport because we never for a moment think it will be one of our horses that goes but when they do it hurts like hell. Just the same as every one else accepts that horses could break a leg in the field or get colic because it is always something that happens to someone else and not them. Until the day it does.

So please, speare a thought for those of us who work with these horses day in day out and treat them as if they were our own.
 
Katikins said:
Thank you for making my point for me :)
Click to expand...
My management and preparation is constantly evolving as I learn more about what horses need. I no longer just listen to the yard boss or expert or practice what's been done for years and years just because it seems to work. I find out if it is actually good for horses first. What I believe and do now is quite different to what I did 10 years ago.
I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum from racing or other sports but that doesn't make me any less able to understand horses imo and that is what I'm trying to get at here, looking at horses, not at what we believe without careful thought and reasoning or have been told.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I am so sorry for your loss EKW. RIP big man.

My sister used to work in the racing industry and had one of her horses die in the Grand National and another die with its head in her lap in the winner enclosure after a win (broken blood vessel in the lungs) and she was devestated and these deaths still stay with her. However, she still loves racing!
 
amandap said:
My management and preparation is constantly evolving as I learn more about what horses need. I no longer just listen to the yard boss or expert or practice what's been done for years and years just because it seems to work. I find out if it is actually good for horses first. What I believe and do now is quite different to what I did 10 years ago.
I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum from racing or other sports but that doesn't make me any less able to understand horses imo and that is what I'm trying to get at here, looking at horses, not at what we believe or have been told.
Click to expand...

My point was that in the racing industry they do everything in their power to reduce the risk of injury through preparation, training, feeding etc... just as you do when you hack out. Its just that you are preparing for different disciplines. You've both reduced the risk as much as possible... but you can't eliminate that risk. So therefore when you ride there is always a chance that injury could come to you or your horse, just as it could if you were racing... no matter how thorough your preparation has been.
 
galaxy23 said:
Again, that is footage from the USA, not the UK. I am 99.9999% certain that those trials do not happen in the UK.


You don't have to look hard on the internet to see all sorts of things happening to animals in the USA which is taken as standard which we would not do to animals in the

UK.
Click to expand...

Yes true, but doesn't the Rolkur debate stem from prominant German riders? Just because it happens in the USA doesn't mean we should ignore it! And do we really know what goes on in the lesser well known racing stables .
 
tallyho! said:
I sobbed seeing that video.

There are no excuses for racing yearlings.
Click to expand...

Yearling aren't raced. The older ones are broken in September/October time, the younger ones as and when they are ready. The do small amounts of strengthening work to build them up a little to prepare them for their 2yo year. By older and younger I mean horses born in January-March as older, end of March onwards as younger ones. They are never galloped. Walked, trotted and slow cantered at most. If they can't cope with the work then they are dropped for the winter and restarted in the spring. If they can then they do a little more work before a bit of a break before their 2yo year.

Yearlings are also not breezed up. The earliest breeze up sales for 2yo's in this country is either at the tail end of March or the first week of April I can't remember which. In this country we allow no drugs at all. In America they can have steroids, pain relief, anti-bleed drugs, and fatigure reducing drugs all pumping round their system at anyone time. The only thing they don't allow you to race on is sedation. That video clip is purely American. I've never been there so I can't comment on what really goes on there.
 
Aces_High said:
They are not yearlings. They are 2 year olds who are being breezed.
Click to expand...

And that makes it OK does it?

I am not a racing hater, I think that the industry as a whole is quite well run and well controlled but the one thing I disagree with is the age that they are put into training and then into very hard, fast work.

I'm sure if us average owners started putting up posts how we were backing and fast hacking our 2yo we would - quite rightly - be slated.

And for all those who think that it is OK because it is only for a short period of their lives and no lasting harm is done, please explain the number of ex-racehorses who have permanent damage caused as a result of being raced as youngsters.
 
madlady said:
And that makes it OK does it?

I am not a racing hater, I think that the industry as a whole is quite well run and well controlled but the one thing I disagree with is the age that they are put into training and then into very hard, fast work.

I'm sure if us average owners started putting up posts how we were backing and fast hacking our 2yo we would - quite rightly - be slated.

And for all those who think that it is OK because it is only for a short period of their lives and no lasting harm is done, please explain the number of ex-racehorses who have permanent damage caused as a result of being raced as youngsters.
Click to expand...

MadLady - please read all of my posts on this thread and then come back to me with a constructive question.
 
As for the theory behind starting younger builds stronger bones and tendons. Yes this is true to an extent. You are conditioning the horses body to the work so it adjusts and strengthens the parts that need it for the work it is being asked to do. You do however increase the risk of joint problems later in life by the strain put on them so young.

Horses started as yearlings or 2yo's have stronger bones and stronger, more flexible tendons and thus are less prone to breaking.

On the flip side! There is also a proven theory that National Hunt Store Horses that are started as 4, 5 or even 6yo's are more like to break a leg in their first race or up the gallops at home because they haven't been conditioned to the work earlier on. The body can't take the strain. National Hunt horses that are started as 3yo's or earlier 4yo's have a much longer career and have less injury problems lying in wait for the future.

In an ideal world a flat horse would not be seen on the track until August onwards as a 2yo if at all that year ready for a glittering career as a 3yo +. National Hunt horses would be broken and ridden away as 3yo's ready for their jumping careers to start as 4yo's. This way you are giving them both the time to mature and the physical grounding they evidently need to do the job they are being asked to do.
 
sheep said:
The image of the poor filly broke my heart. Obviously physics has something to do with it- she couldn't've stopped right away- but seeing her continue to run like that..
Click to expand...
I won't watch it. Seeing Percase break a leg in 1985 and carry on running with it flapping about gave me instant heart palpitations and, subsequently, nightmares. I have no wish to repeat that.

I used to love racing, and was seriously "into" it in the 1980s, watching all the races that came on telly. Despite the accidents, some utterly horrific like the Percase one, I still loved it. I used to come over sentimental and teary-eyed when Never So Bold ran so "bravely" even though he would go lame after winning because of bleeding into the knee cap.

Then, at some point, I started to acknowledge the ugly industry side of racing a bit more. I always knew it was there, of course, but my blinkered view stopped me really thinking about it. I also came to appreciate the toll that racing can take on some horses, both physically and psychologically. For example, why is the prevalence of stereotypies like crib-biting and weaving higher in racing TBs compared to other horses? Having brought up a non-racing thoroughbred from a foal, I know that not all of the high-strung behaviour one sees in racehorses is genetic in origin; training and environment play a role too. I am not convinced that a "highly-strung" state is natural or benign for a horse. I think it may be harmful. So, helped by e.g. a documentary showing a Jockey Club official shamefacedly admitting they didn't contribute a penny towards TB rehabilitation (I dare say that has changed now), I "went off" racing. Last time I went racing, a few years ago in the company of one of the course vets, I watched three horses in the stable block weaving in perfect synchrony.
 
fburton said:
I "went off" racing. Last time I went racing, a few years ago in the company of one of the course vets, I watched three horses in the stable block weaving in perfect synchrony.
Click to expand...

85 horses. 2 weavers. 3 cribbers. 1 box walker. 6 out of 85? Not bad stats considering the sport they are in. Oh and those 6 only start that behaviour when the food trolley appears!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top