Having watched the race, I agree with the KHRA about Saez not abusing the whip, but otherwise, I think owners and trainers should be made to more carefully evaluate the maturity of their horses before they start training, and the intensity of the racing schedules is certainly something that should be discussed! Moreover, breeders should not just breed for speed, but for soundness and solid bone structure, as well! !!
Same old blah blah blah from the racing industry. Bramblage, the big time vet, makes a high profile living off of treating broken race horses, so it's hard not to see a conflict of interest there.
Horses are very beautiful animals, so they should be taken good care of, like all nature needs to be. So if you see that this sport is dangerous then try to make it safer without abusing them.
You know horses are born to run. Their two main interests in life are flight and survival and they are competetive animals- especially the dominant ones. I thinking that putting imature horses on the track is wrong, because obviously, it does damage to their physical well being and that is easy to change. Is horse racing a cruel and imhumane sport? No, not if you ask me, and not if you ask Monty Roberts (I feel totally safe to say.) Are there things that can be improved to help the well being of these beautiful athletes are are bred to do what they love? By far yes. So my only problem is why we have been questioning theses improvements for so long. How much more money has to be spent on horses like Barbaro and how many more horses like Eight Belles have to go down because people have dilly dallied on making safer tracks and making it a SOUND rule to put more mature horses on the track? Horse racing is suffering because people are questioning silly things that should of been decided a while ago. I love to watch the horses run, and as a pure competetor myself (track and cross country) as well as passionate horsewoman, I think these decisions of track safety, whip abuse and use, and racing more developed horses should be in affect already. If people really care about the horses and this sport and want tragedies like these to stop- they should be getting active already!
Pardon: "Their two main interests in life are flight and survival" should be changed to "Their two main interests in life are REPRODUCTION and survival." Horses are flight animals and ""
All other horse sports wait until the horse is physically able to withstand its requirements before competing. Horse racing should do the same thing and wait until the horses are three years old and mature enough. As for letting muscle atrophy that's ridiculous. The horses can still be trained but they don't have to be overworked.
Eight Belles was raced TOO young,and TOO hard....it wasn't meant to be this way! These people are in it for the money,not for the welfare of the horses.....They are headed to hell,and have God to account to!