I read about the Panorama documentary being aired tonight on the BBC online news this morning. It states the UK abattoir had on occasion breached welfare guidelines by shooting from a distance and in sight of other equines. The abattoir stated it deals appropriately with infractions (paraphrased). The BBC also reported horses are shipped from Ireland to the UK specifically for slaughter. I don’t understand the economics of that even before Brexit. Whatever, it is another nail in the coffin for racing.
They get lots of unhandled moorland ponies in. If you get 2 pair bonded wild ones then in together and from a distance makes sense to me. FWIW I've never seen that happen.
The guy that shoots them is exceptional at his job IMO- he is so calm with the horses, he gives them time and is an expert shot.
Oh, it's that one, is it? The footage to be shown tonight was captured by covert cctv.have spent a significant amount of time at the abattoir reported on here and have never witnessed anything I would be uncomfortable with.
A part of a letter of value.
Oliver MC Sherwood
July 19 at 9:18 PM ·
It’s very disappointing that Panorama felt the need to show such a misleading, gut wrenching episode tonight blaming horse racing for the horrific deaths of those poor animals at an abattoir, many of which were clearly not thoroughbreds.
It was an episode designed to shock and it had very little evidence to back up their sensationalist claims.
This was gutter journalism and not at all a true representation of what goes on in the majority of racing yards up and down the country.
Sadly it’s not untypical of the way that (BBC) organisation has gone in recent times and let’s not forget it was Panorama that faked documents in order to get the now discredited Diana interview with Martin Bashir.
In these very transparent days of social media you (the public) are able to see what goes on behind the scenes in our workplace and you also know from reading my (and other trainers) web sites that we try our best to rehome horses after their racing life.
It’s not always possible, you may recall I recently asked an owner to remove his two horses that I felt were not enjoying their racing anymore when he refused to let me retire them.
Racing isn’t perfect and I do think that we probably didn’t do enough years ago to ensure ex racehorses had another life to move on to, that has changed for the better with the emergence of ROR shows and the many yards that now specialise in re training racehorses.
Racing will continue to listen and to learn but we need your support now more than ever in order to halt the amount of misinformation that is peddled by organisations that don’t want horses to do anything competitive.
The Disney culture is unrealistic and many of these people have a misguided idea that a horse bred to compete would prefer to spend its days turned out in a field …bored senseless and up to their knees in mud.
Below are a selection of horses we have rehomed in their new life, please feel free to add your own pictures
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Horses and sadly, very rarely lay down on the ground and die in their sleep ~ it simply doesn't happen. We need a disposal system which is ethical and humane ~ we need a disposal system which we currently don't appear to have. There was much in the film which was skewed and to the point of being gutter journalism ~ and there was also much which was truly shocking.
There are now campaigns being launched to have Drury's abattoir closed down and that will achieve nothing. There were State paid vets on hand who were well aware of what was going on and they stood by and did nothing. Closing down our equine abattoirs is NOT the answer ~ the answer is that we have monitored CCTV in place and in every UK abattoir and ANY abuse of horses should result in prosecution. We need a system which is fit for purpose, we need to do-different.
You may have thought it was bad journalism but the videos weren't made up. Are you okay with the poor treatment you saw regardless of the reporter?Thank you for posting this. It's patently clear that this hastily cobbled together piece of reporting didn't show the dark side of slaughterhouses or even the dark side of racing but more worryingly may have shown the dark side of the government.
The BBC has long been held to ransom over the licence fee and is now struggling for its independence but is it allowing itself to become state controlled for survival?
The government has a new Action Plan for Animal Welfare. All well and good you may say but to quote The Rt Hon Nick Herbert : "We need to consider a number of questions as we examine the bill. The first is to distinguish clearly between animal rights and animal welfare".
And we all know of at least one AR campaigner who has the PM's ear.
You may have thought it was bad journalism but the videos weren't made up. Are you okay with the poor treatment you saw regardless of the reporter?
It's an abattoir, it's going to be stressful and it's going to shock the uninitiated, .
Thank you for posting this. It's patently clear that this hastily cobbled together piece of reporting didn't show the dark side of slaughterhouses or even the dark side of racing but more worryingly may have shown the dark side of the government.
The BBC has long been held to ransom over the licence fee and is now struggling for its independence but is it allowing itself to become state controlled for survival?
The government has a new Action Plan for Animal Welfare. All well and good you may say but to quote The Rt Hon Nick Herbert : "We need to consider a number of questions as we examine the bill. The first is to distinguish clearly between animal rights and animal welfare".
And we all know of at least one AR campaigner who has the PM's ear.
I thought they were all telling us how nicely animals were slaughtered, how it was humane. There was nothing I saw that was humane.It's an abattoir, it's going to be stressful and it's going to shock the uninitiated, that's the point of the film.
Free bullet at point blank range with a .22 long rifle is accepted practice as is a 2m distance where safety is a factor.
This particular group have long been associated with covert activity and we only have their assertions regarding provenance, time frames etc. I am not prepared to take everything they allege as fact and would prefer to wait for the outcome of any enquiry.
Err, no.It's an abattoir, it's going to be stressful and it's going to shock the uninitiated, that's the point of the film.
This has to win this year's trophy for whataboutery.
It's the government's fault that racing overbreeds thousands of TBs and kills thousands of healthy animals when they are no longer of any use to it? Yeah, right.
I watched it and wondered what the reaction would be.i thought most people would be able to work it out for themselves.Thank you for posting this. It's patently clear that this hastily cobbled together piece of reporting didn't show the dark side of slaughterhouses or even the dark side of racing but more worryingly may have shown the dark side of the government.
The BBC has long been held to ransom over the licence fee and is now struggling for its independence but is it allowing itself to become state controlled for survival?
The government has a new Action Plan for Animal Welfare. All well and good you may say but to quote The Rt Hon Nick Herbert : "We need to consider a number of questions as we examine the bill. The first is to distinguish clearly between animal rights and animal welfare".
And we all know of at least one AR campaigner who has the PM's ear.
To summarise my feelings, if horses are treated like commodities in the racing industry, is it a surprise that most of them are sent to slaughter? It's a huge waste of life, we don't deserve horses.
The Irish do indeed have a very different attitude towards horses in general. Gordon Elliot anyone!
I have an ex-racehorse which came direct from a small trainers yard where the horses and their needs came first. It was very important to them that TB's under their care went on to have new jobs when their racing career was over. My boy has immaculate manners, when I tried him he went on the bit had been "started correctly" long reined, lunged, pole work, grid work, stands at a mounting block, stands next to a fence to be mounted etc etc. He was not a successful racehorse as he was not interested in racing but had the ability!!
GE isn't actually one of the worst offenders he just happened to hit the spotlight one too many times recently because he is stupid.
A lot of yards are seeing the benefits of starting them properly again. There was a phase in the 2000's up until recently where horses have just had tack and a rider thrown on them, galloped and raced with no thought as to doing things properly or for a future career. That attitude is changing thankfully and going back to the way it was always done. Not so much the big factories or the Irish PTP scene but a lot of yards in Britain are doing things properly again. Some never stopped doing it that way.