Kentucky Derby, the Oaks, every horse racing event...

When the track isn't optimal for a horse, yet they race them anyway leading to an injury... death to the horse.

Horses blood line doesnt win.... death to the horses....

How many ways does money influence a horses death?

Did I just log into Quora.....
Or maybe Pintrest?

Horses are bred in different ways, my bet the OP is a lobbying vegetarian?

a reply to: EternalSolace

Born to run.

A real native racehorse loves the $** out of it. If you've ever seen a muddy race where the jockey fell off his mount... the horse will keep running, just to stay up with the pack. And since he doesn't have the burden of a jockey, usually beats the others to the line.

This time of year, the stallions are so randy, they chase the females around and around a pasture. She will kick the crap out of him, and he doesn't even notice. You have to take the shoes off the girls, or they can kill with those metal hooves. And his only response is a kickstand that drags in the dirt when he runs.

They'll just run in circles in the sunshine, sweating foam and racing the wind all afternoon. Then, in the fading gold of dusk, they make love.

The most cruel thing you can do to a horse like that is prevent him from running. It's always a risk that something will happen on the track. Or you could win it all.

a reply to: EternalSolace

I'm pretty sure they do it for the insurance.

These horse owners treat them as a commodity.

a reply to: Graysen


What a beautiful post.

I think it is hard for us to understand the mindset of animals but you seem to capture it perfectly.

Maybe we shouldn't use horses for our own purposes but it is a symbiotic relationship and when a horse can no longer run, I think it is far kinder to end their misery than let them dwell on what once was.

Hunter S. Thompson called it a long time ago.

The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved

a reply to: EternalSolace

Some horses run better on wet, muddy tracks. Some horses run better on turf instead of dirt. Problems occur when you run a horse over a track he or she is not used to, hasn't trained over. It results in slower times and injury.

Believe it or not, the same thing happens in human athletes. Ever seen a football game where players used to playing and practicing on grass suddenly play on artificial turf or vice versa?

I have had direct experience of it myself. In college we generally practiced and competed on rubberized surfaces for indoor track and field. However, the first time I competed at an indoor event held by Oklahoma University, they had a wooden indoor track. The whole thing was modular like an old style Hot Wheels track and smooth. You had to wear 1/2" or longer spikes in your shoes to attempt to get a grip and the curves on both ends were banked at an angle like an indoor sprint cycling track as opposed to being flat like they are at most indoor track venues.

It was completely alien to most of the athletes competing there.

You wouldn't believe the number of crashes, injuries, and self-spikings I saw. I ended up spiking myself competing at the high jump at that meet.

**EDIT**

Now that isn't to say that horse racing doesn't have its problems, but I think large parts of it lie in the way they have geared the breed itself and some of the training practices more than in when they run the animals over wet track.

I will never watch the Kentucky Derby again. That track was treacherous, not only for the horses, but the jockeys themselves.

There should always be an alternate date, in case nature intervenes. A total disregard for safety, not to mention the stupid decision to take the glory away from the winner, when a horse drifts a little in that horrible muck.

There is no way any jockey can overcome the sideways momentum in time with a field like that, and in my opinion, what he was able to do probably saved himself, his horse, and those around him. He and his horse won that race, and that is the way it should have gone down.

a reply to: charlyv

The way they drifted endangered more than just themselves though. Didn't you see how close his horse's rear hooves were to the horses he cut off? Get tangled up and cause a fall and then you have more then just those two going down in a crowded field. That's also a recipe for disaster.

No.

They should have pulled up if it was that bad.

Again, most of racing's issues are caused by the over-breeding focused on speed to the exclusion of traits like durability. Then you have the propensity to race before horses are physically done developing compounding that issue even more.