DISGUSTING - tb's shot - surplus to requirements

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moneypit1

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I was told today the following: a young groom at a local racing yard had to hold 7 thoroughbred 3 yo's whilst they were shot by the hunt. Apparently they were 'no good' for racing. My friend was offered one for £600 but could not afford it so it was shot along with its stable mates. I won't name the trainer as I have no proof but surfice to say know the source very well. Surely they must of had some value? I suppose it is better than ending up cold, hungry and unwanted but god how very very sad.
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I spose it is better than ending up cold, wet and hungry. But its still quite sick - jsut because they are of no use to the industry! They were only 3 - surely there were plenty of other things that could of been done with them.
 
Yes it's sad, but assuming it is true, I almost think I'd rather that happened to them, than them being passed along the line from sale to sale with conditions getting worse and worse for them. I think there's going to be a lot of it going on in the future, not just with failed racehorses. I do feel sorry for the groom though, that really does qualify as a Bad Day.
 
My friend asked the trainer why he didn't train them up and sell them as riding horses and he said it wasn't worth it financially and he hasn't the time. What a bloody waste of life, all that effort of breeding, rearing etc. Can't get my head around it.
 
I would love to buy them and save them. I know they might be no good for racing, but I have an ex-racehorse that I event. Just because a horse isn't good enough for the sport that it was bred for, doesn't mean that it has to be shot. Cruel. <font color="red"> </font>
 
TBH, look at it from the trainers POV - exracers are 10 a penny (look at Brightwells Bloodstock results for the past few months) and even once they have been reschooled many people won't touch them with a bargepole.

For the owners/breeders/trainers to be able to make any money then they have to cut their losses, for them it is business remember, they don't have the same attachment to them as we do.

It is sad, but I suspect for the horses it is better than ending up with numpty owners, just because they are cheap.
 
She rang me today and asked me if I wanted one for £600. I just COULDN'T. I feel so bad but what could I do? God feel awful about it, will have nightmares tonight.
 
You could send a confidential email to the Racehorse Sanctuary or other rescue centre. Dreadful for the groom but perhaps we could save other horses in the future. There have been lots of posts on this forum on indiscriminate breeding and the effects of recession. Time to cut back on breeding?

I will have one foal next year and will send only two mares to stud.
 
i would have bought them..i bought a failed race filly at 3yo for£900 and shes worth £5'500 now!!...one of the best horses iv ever competed!!...waste of good potential in another dicipline if you ask me..but i agree, id rather them shot than ribbed, starving, cold beasts.
 
If it's true, then I'm shocked - obviously at the waste of these young horses - although at least they weren't packed off to some ghastly auction for the meat-men/dealers to fight over - before being shipped on to more auctions or the final bullet.

But I am shocked that hunt staff would expect a young groom to hold them. My local hunt has put down two horses for me in the last two years - always two men - one to hold! (And I'm a hell of a lot older and more experienced than this poor girl!) It's not JUST that it's immensely distressing - but there's also the safety aspect to keep in mind when putting a horse down - and an 18 year old with limited experience shouldn't have been anywhere near!

(And if my lcal huntsman was 'offered' 6 young TBs, he'd be doing his best to take them on himself, to school to hunt and then sell!)
 
Many years ago (15) i went to a very well known trainers yard,mostly hurdlers,i went to pick up a horse for one of my liveries which had bought a x hurdler and i came away with 4 horses for £800 as they were in a feild waiting to go for meat or whatever else lay in wait for them,i kept 2 and sold 2,all were sound and aged between 8 and 12 just come to the end of thier days,only one of them ended up being put down 2 years later as he had the most awful feet and couldnt stay sound in the end,when southall market was around the meat man use to turn up about 30 mins before the end and you would see race horses being loaded on to his lorry from other lorries very sad sight to see,its so different these days i dont have my own yard anymore,which i suppose is a god send with the current climate
 
So sad, but there are worse things that happen to failed racers (especially in the current financial situation).

The whole thing will have been far more distressing for the poor groom than for the horses themselves. If it was carried out professionally everything would have been very quick with minimal stress.

Very cruel to the poor 18 year old though.
 
Assuming horses were sound, yes, it's a terrible waste. I've had several TBs that were 'no good for racing' straight from a trainer. PF was one of them. The trainer explained it cost more to feed and keep and retrain a racehorse than its actual market value, which is why some (often quite a lot) are shot rather than sold on. I believe this is also done so they don't end up in unsuitable hands; cheap horse often equals numpty purchase. How much worse if the horse ends up neglected/abused etc?
Still sad
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Not nice I agree. However in the current financial situation there is not many people that will take on these horses anymore however cheap they might be to buy TB's can cost so much to keep as many people on here know.
The Tb rehabilitation centres are full and will prob have to turn many tb's away in this climate, so sad as it is I'd rather these horses where shot than ended up as hat racks somewhere for someone else to sort out.
I don't know the correct figures of TB's bred for racing every year but we all know it's quite a few - and they aren't going to stop breeding them, so unfortunately I can see much more of this sort of thing happening.
 
Horrible for the groom, but a fair introduction to the realities of overproduction for the racing industry. I am actually pleased that the trainer was responsible enough to do the right thing by these horses and not just consign them to an uncertain future
 
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a fair introduction to the realities of overproduction for the racing industry.

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Tragic but true. As much as I wish I could rehome all the unwanted racers I can't, not many people can at the moment and over the next couple of years even fewer people are going to have the spare money to be able to.

This problem needs to be looked at from the source, the overbreeding of TB's, we can't just keep patching the problem up.
 
The problem is that there are so many ex racehorses, and they are tricky because a lot of them don't have great conformation or aren't particularly sound, so won't ever be anything more than low level allrounders or happy hackers. That would be okay except that lots of people who want this type of horse don't want to have a thoroughbred that often are fair poor doers and need quite a lot of maintenance. Also, there are so many of them that there isn't a lot of money in buying them to retrain unless you get a really particularly nice one.

Its a catch 22 really - while so many tbs are bred for the racing industry, there will always be far too many. I do think it is probably better for ones with dodgy soundness or serious conformation faults to be put down, but its a shame more people aren't willing to buy re-trained racehorses, because lots of them are no more difficult or temperamental than lots of other breeds.
 
it is a shame. assuming they were sound and relatively sane, it would be possible to find them suitable homes at meat money prices. I know of a BHS training centre which will take them on a reschool when they have space. I myself have a horse who was given away out of racing.

there are plenty of decent homes for them - lots of people DO want ex racers (if they are the sound, sane, vice-free variety) and will give them the education and experience to be an all round riding or competition horse.

it would make so much sense to have a register of people willing (and capable) to take on such horses - as far as I know there is no system .. I guess it would be difficult to do.
 
It is a very sad situation.

My first horse was free, a failed racehorse and a lovely girl.

I was living near Newmarket at the time and I know of several people who got their horses free from some of the yards round there.

It would be good if there could be some sort of system as suggested by RachelFerd but don't know how it would work.
 
It is very, very sad, but with the current financial climate perhaps its the kindest thing. Better than being slung out in a field clipped but unrugged to starve.

I work for an animal charity and there are a LOT of people giving up their animals now due to financial hardship. The sanctuaries can't cope and at some sales in Ireland, unsold horses are being abandoned after the sale - just left there. There is no room in the sanctuaries and a huge waiting list at the slaughterhouses - so what happens to these poor horses isn't worth thinking about - it isn't a quick death in their home like these horses at least had.
 
Very sad, I agree that it is better to pts now then end up goodness knows where, but it is a shame that the TB issue exists like this. Having owned an ex-racer, I cannot recommend them enough and were I not in a messy situation with my personal life, I'd be getting another asap.
 
Not sure what its like over there but you can't even give them away over here. It better than them being left to starve in fields with no rugs on etc. or being shipped live for meat isn't it? 100's are being killed for meat here every day.

Sympathies to your friend who is the groom. Bit of a baptism of fire into the racing industry, that can't have been a good day at the office.
 
Put it this way, if they hadn't been shot there and then, they would probably be on a lorry on their way to Poland or Italy now.
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I'd rather the owners and trainer put them down now.
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I do feel sorry for the groom though, I think a more experienced person should have dealt with the horses.
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It's a shame, as many many TBs make lovely family horses. They're versatile too, with ex racers able to do their own showing classes, RC, PC and much more. The thing is, they need the right re training and correct handling. And there aren't that many people out there who have both the time and finances involved in bringing on an ex racer.

Better to have them PTS than for them to face an uncertain future.
 
Im with you Spiral. I know a couple of people who pick up the better bred rejects for a few hundred each and then reschool and sell on. I would say 50% of them turn out to have real physical/confo problems and cost a fortune in time and effort to get right enough to even put into the lower end of the riding horse market. These really are the lucky ones and are exeptions so whilst I find it hard to deal with so many being pts/shot it really is the best thing in the end. A horse can have the best bloodlines on the planet but thats just not enough.
 
Those horses were lucky and obviously came from a caring yard. The French horsemeat industry is a large consumer of British racing waste. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but not all of them are dead before shipping. The racing industry produces an enormous quantity of waste, which is one reason I dlsike it.

ETA If you think having unwanted horses humanely pts, what do you think should have happened to them?
 
Moneypit if you went along any day they are killing at the equine abbatoir you would see more than three, when I went they had two whole box loads go through, most still with their plates on.. I didn't like it but apparently it's a normal occurrence.
It's a difficult subject to decide on, TB's have had such pampered lives it wouldn't be kind to shove them in a windy wet field to cope.
I agree many could lead useful lives but with the financial world in the crisis it is at the moment, you're going to see a lot more racehorses die, as a luxury they will be first to go to save money for companies.
Given a choice I would chose shooting by the hunt than the abbattoir any day, at least they are at home and it's quick with no fear..
 
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