Horses brought to Ireland for 'barbaric' treatment of injuries

Well I don't know if things changed in the UK in the last 3 years but all the racing yards I have worked for up until leaving racing 3 years ago got their regular vets to fire a number if horses each year for tendon problems at their own yards. I doubt that has changed.
 
I always thought that firing leaves scars , why don't they just ban horses with the scarring from racing . I would have thought it would be easy to do this as vets can check legs at race courses
 
Don't think it is banned.. as a horse in a yard i worked at was done last year, and i'm sure it was done in this country!!
Agree tho, it is pretty horrid!!!!!!
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I have an ex-racer who my current vet thinks was fired at least three times after he broke down. Never had any issues other than can not insure his front legs.

Personally I don't agree with it and if it was such an amazing cure for tendon injuries why don't doctors do it on people?
 
All the horses I have seen that have been fired have scars. If they are bar fired (the one I have seen done) they have stripes accorss their tendons, horizontally. Pin fired have spots down each side.

I can't see them ever banning fired horses from racing as that would probably end up at about 1/3 of race horses (particulary national hunt) disappearing over night including some big names.

It is taken for granted as a course of action by at least 80% of racing yards, possibly closer to 90%, along with acid injections directly into the tendon and blistering. I have also heard of some yards using freezing irons (like the ones used for freezemarking) instead of the red hot ones usually used.
 
We had a beautiful mare dumped on us by a non paying livery who had terribly scarred front legs.
I traced her history back to a vet near Teweksbury who told me he had operated on her and fired her.
Her temperament was ruined as a result, she went beserk if anyone attempted to treat her and it took years of handling before she trusted us enough to touch her, even then show her any vet procedure and she would not even allow you to enter the stable, attacking with front and hind legs and teeth.
Apparently she had been fine until fired, and that nice vet told me the best way to ensure you get a good reaction is to pour battery acid over the wounds.
I couldn't speak to him after hearing that.
Sadly she ended up being put down as she was just too dangerous to have around, and no way would I breed that temperament forwards.
I don't think it should be allowed, these days we have alternative methods such as stem cells therapy and this is in the same league as bear baiting...
 
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