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Post by satellite on May 6, 2008 21:26:52 GMT -4
I've always been turned off by animal sports in general. I hate circuses. A dog show I can deal with but dog and horse races seem wrong. It must have been horrible to be there, witnessing her fall and then be killed. I feel horrible even thinking about it. Horse racing has always left a bad taste in my mouth too. I know zip about horses, but really, what other domestic (non-food pet) animal do we kill when it has a broken leg? There's no surgery or casts or anything? I don't mind circuses, but I also don't think we necessarily should shoot, say a dog or a tiger that "goes tiger" per Dave Chappelle after the fact. Of course if I'm in the process of being eaten, it's self-defense.  |
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Post by Sunnyhorse on May 6, 2008 22:41:44 GMT -4
It's a lot easier to fix a dog's broken leg than a horse's -- you're talking about keeping a more-than-half-ton animal immobilized and hoping against hope that laminitis doesn't set in during recovery (as happened with Barbaro) -- and this particular case was hopeless: front legs broken, skin compromised. I'm no apologist for the racing industry, but there was simply no merciful option here but to euthanize Eight Belles on the track.
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Post by satellite on May 7, 2008 10:44:07 GMT -4
Ok, that's understandable. Even the heart attack/ stroke predictions were highly disturbing, poor things.
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Post by Sunnyhorse on May 7, 2008 10:51:35 GMT -4
There's some interesting new research indicating that it may be possible to predict, on the basis of variations in heart rate, which horses are likely to break down (creepily enough, I read about it in the May issue of Equus, which arrived just before the Derby). I'd argue that although it'll be great to be able to predict these things, it's immoral to continue breeding horses with known soundness issues (or those known for offspring with such problems) and using drugs like Lasix (a diuretic used to help prevent pulmonary hemorrhages) that sap the bones of calcium.
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Post by Malle Babbe on May 10, 2008 0:23:20 GMT -4
If anyone's interested, Slate had an article explaining why a broken leg is so grim for a horse. I saw footage of Eight Belles breaking her two front legs and just cringed. Poor thing. Horse races are thrilling to watch; watching Barbaro sail through the Derby like the other horses were standing still was amazing. It was like watching Secretariat. But two really public breakdowns of horses makes one question if everything is being done to do right by the animals. You'd think concern for the jockey's safety would be an issue... |
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Post by Sunnyhorse on Aug 18, 2008 14:24:28 GMT -4
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aims
Blueblood
Posts: 1,226
Mar 11, 2005 13:05:22 GMT -4
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Post by aims on Aug 18, 2008 15:25:38 GMT -4
Aww! She was a pretty girl. 31 though, not a bad life for an ex racer.
RIP Girl!!
I'm surprised she didn't foal any champions.
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Post by kanding on Aug 19, 2008 8:50:33 GMT -4
Just two live foals from 17 tries. That's too bad. It sounds like she had a long, comfortable retirement. It's good to read about a racehorse that dies from natural causes for a change.
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Post by Sunnyhorse on Nov 7, 2011 0:13:57 GMT -4
So sad to see that Hickstead has died. He was an amazing horse, small but full of fire. Here he is in 2010, helping Philipppe Le Jeune win gold is at the World Equestrian Games final. (The top four riders were required to ride each of the others' horses.) |
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Post by Ginger on May 19, 2013 8:37:38 GMT -4
Anybody else watch The Preakness yesterday? It was ridiculous how confident the announcers were that Orb was going to win. They barely mentioned the other horse's names - except for the one that grew up on the same farm as Orb. Then halfway through the race when it was clear that not only was Orb going to lose, but he might actually come in last and it was like, "Orb who?"
The part I found most ridiculous was this computer simulation program they've come up with to try to give weight to their prognostications. "We've run 163 race simulations and Orb has won every single time!" Just because you drew pictures of horsies on a computer screen and made one of them go faster than the others doesn't mean that's what's going to happen in real life, people.
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