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I’ll confess to having reacted viscerally to the news of Eight Belle’s euthanasia after her second-place performance in yesterday’s Kentucky Derby. Last night’s late post found me at a loss for words to express the confusing emotions I’d experienced after my boyfriend’s “I have bad news” phone call reached me in advance of a few others.
Nonetheless, I’ll not rescind my call to boycott the Triple Crown...and the folks over at PetConnection will urge you to do the same. For all those that care about animals and their welfare, we consider it a worthy, if simple, demonstration of our willingness to disengage ourselves from this sport until the thoroughbred racing industry takes credible steps to reform its dangerous practices (more on this in an upcoming post).
This action means fewer viewers supporting NBC’s coverage…and its sponsors. And though our impact may well prove minor, it counts tremendously to know that even one set of eyeballs—yours—is disaffected enough to turn away.
Each pair that does so represents one more step away from the thoroughbred racing industry’s continued legitimacy in its current incarnation. If its taste is for the greenery of the sport, as we suspect, our decisive inaction should prove helpful for the welfare of the horses involved.
And here’s where I decry the broadcasters as well as the industry, lending some credibility to the need to eschew the sport’s television coverage of the lucrative Triple Crown. After all, the broadcast media is as financially complicit in the machinery of the sport as the industry players themselves. As such, it’s as deserving of our boycott as the target itself.
And after yesterday’s performance—by which I mean the television coverage—I think you might agree.
Though I’ve so far refused to watch any replays, my reliable confidants (other veterinarians) have suggested that NBC’s coverage intentionally downplayed the injury, panning far wide of the site of the breakdown as it ignored the obvious goings-on at the margins of the screen.
To them, it smacked of obfuscation, a calculated and transparent attempt to abide by network policy when it comes to the too-common downside of the sport. (For the record, here's NBC' s side of things.)
Of course the Kentucky Derby is family fare. And no one wants their children to bear witness to the untimely euthanasia of a filly so many were rooting for. It couldn’t have been a less desirable turn of events. But truth has proved stranger than fiction, yet again.
I don’t deny that focusing telephotos on tragedy makes me squirm with an uncomfortable perplexity of sentiments: I want to know what happened, particularly as I have a medical interest in the injury, but I hate the thought of a nation of gawkers mercilessly rubbernecking the mess.
Ultimately, though, transparency is always the best policy, isn’t it? When a football player goes down, we watch with bated breath as he’s carried off the field on a stretcher, discussing the importance of his loss to the team, his prospects for recovery and the true meaning of risk in sport. Yet when a horse goes down, we turn the cameras away. We focus on anything but the “elephant in the room” being whisked away into oblivion.
And for what? Out of respect? I doubt that.
Perhaps I’m jaded after years of watching the same pulsing, media machinery crank out glory stories on the lives of horses lost, as if frolicking foals on fields of green could obscure the fact that these horses are babies, not two or three years off their mothers’ teats.
And when they do go down in the limelight, as Ruffian, Barbaro and Eight Belles did, among countless others, we speak of “courage” and “heart,” as if no one’s to blame in the felling of the sport’s superheroes.
So where’s their courage now? Show us the filly in her agony. Show me the needle in the jugular. I want to see the real deal, not the industry-sparing, income-protecting, face-saving money shots of Eight Belles on the green pastures of her even earlier days.
I don’t envy the networks and the media at large their position after the death of a horse. It’s tricky, at best. But the big news for most of us after the 2008 Kentucky Derby was not the win but the loss. I was infuriated by huge, splashy pics of the winner with small subtitles referencing tragic events down below (with the notable exception of the New York Times--sorry if I missed other excellent coverage).
Only the editorials ventured out against the industry and their hand in the debacle. While The New York Times offered an interesting one, my local Miami Herald had the guts to lambast the industry by calling out the trainers, describing one as a “scumbag” for his freewheeling drug doping exemplary of the industry’s corruption (just condemnation I was gratified to see in print).
Forgive my rambling diatribe. It’s been a hard bit of news to digest. So now, again, I offer you your turn to tell me what you think…
So what do you say? Will you boycott with me?
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So no, I will not boycott the Triple Crown any more than I would boycott the Super Bowl or World Series or the Olympics--how many human lives have been destroyed by performance enhancing drugs in the pursuit of a new world's record? If any of you out there jump on the "Boycott Bandwagon," I hope you don't let your chilren play the oh-so-fashionable game of soccer since there are stuidies showing repeatedly bouncing a soccer ball of the head causes brain injuries. And don't tell me those kids have any more choice about it than young racehorses, because I know better.
I'm guessing every one of you "boycotters" will lock yourselves and your families in your houses and never, ever show your faces outside. Lord knows you might get rained on.
Humans choose the activities in which they participate. Our animals don't. Humans choose where they live, or at least have the ability to make choices related to that. Our animals don't. Humans weigh the risks and benefits of their choices. Me make those choices for our animals. Humans can ask for help. Humans have basic rights that animals will likely never have. Every owned animal is essentially someone's prisoner. Someone's slave. I've always said that I try to be a benevolent warden. I try to do what's best for my animals, even if it's difficult, inconvenient, or expensive.
Comparing human choices to the choices humans inflict on animals is apples and oranges.
And while I support boycotting most forms of animal use, I'm always a bit put off by hypocrisy. I'm vegan, so I have some credibility in that regard. At the same time, I haven't made the great leap to feeding my dogs and cats a vegan diet. Thus, I'm still grudgingly part of the animal use megalopoly. As such I don't preach. I'm doing what's right for me. Others do what's right for them. But when it comes to our animals, they have no say in the matter.
I have a long memory, and I still refuse to support certain businesses on the "wrong" side of some issue that is/was important to me. If people do get involved in some sort of boycott, with the goal of greater safety and humanity towards horses, I hope they do so consciously, and with commitment. Probably the only thing worse than doing nothing is to support some kind of boycott that is easily appeased by good corporate PR, or is all but forgotten next month. Companies have learned that they don't really need to do anything, as long as they put the right spin on an issue. The public is quick to forget, and nothing changes.
This is true whether the endeavor is fighting dogs "for fun and profit", selling puppies, selling circus tickets, or racing horses. When the welfare of the animal comes into conflict with attainment of maximum profit, the animal will suffer. In many cases, the animal will die. Some such deaths are, of course, considered acceptable, as long as profit margins remain healthy.
We've got to understand that causing suffering and death of sentient animals in order to earn money is a faustian bargain. it degrades the animal - and it degrades the humans. A boycott of the Triple Crown will accomplish little - but "little" is not nothing.
And then you slide directly into sneering at anyone who might consider a boycott as a possible whay to deliver a wake-up call to the racing industry. It's okay to make some mild criticisms, but wimpy, hypocritical, and a sign of weak moral character to withhold our dollars and our eyeballs from the support of the industry, have I got that right?
And, oh yes, horses do love to race and there's nothing inherently wrong with horseracing as a sport--but there _is_ something wrong with how it's being conducted today. Something seriously wrong. Barbaro, Eight Belles, and how many other horses in less high-profile races in the last two years, dead due to human decisions about breeding, training, and drug use? How many of those young fillies and colts engaging in their own spontaneous races are injecting their own performance-enhancing drugs?
Understand that I'm not looking to see racing come to an end. I'm attempting to use our leverage as viewers to force the industry to pay attention to the changes they should be making:
1-no more dirt tracks
2-smaller fields (20 horses is crazy)
3-more sound genetics (a switch in tracks may go a long way towards reaching this)
4-increasing the racing age
If any other sport had the casualty rate of thoroughbred racing (1.5 per every 1,000 race starts), you can bet we'd be looking for ways to solve it. As the New York Times editorialist wondered, why is it we keep giving this industry a pass?
"When the welfare of the animal comes into conflict with attainment of maximum profit, the animal will suffer . . . "
Yes, and this is particularly offends my heart when it is done to animals. But, i want to add -- our fabulous species does this to its own, too. Look at what is happening in China --- it's worse than a replay of the US before labor laws and unions. They are forcing their poor to work in factories where they are exposed to toxic chemical and then exporting tainted products to kill our children and pets, all for profit. The diamond trade in Africa. It's really endless.
Our treatment of animals is a reflection of the soul-lessness of those who pursue money as their own highest value, and is an example of how morally vapid we are.
And yes, horses love to run, they would run in large open land. BUT NOT LIKE THAT -- not ceaselessly at break-neck speed in circles. You can't compare what a horse would do by nature with what they are forced to do for "sport." I agree that it is reminscent of the horrors of the Roman Coluseum.
Kids like to play in traffic, jump off roofs, eat candy 'till they burst. We don't let them because we've got better judgement than they do on these things.
Why is "the horse loves it..." still so overused as an example?
There's always a need to improve all horse sports so I support efforts in that regard. But there is no way you can eliminate all the risk without eliminating all equestrian activities. If we ban racing, then what's next? Eventing? Show jumping? Dude ranch trail rides? All riding entirely? Why stop with horses? Lets ban dog sledding and agility trials. Where do you draw the line?
There have been no injuries that have led to permanent soundness issues, despite the fact that the horses often play, run, and act like horses sometimes do (a little fussing, a little kicking, a little squealing between mares). Show me a random sample of twenty racehorses and I guarantee that they will have far more soundness issues in ten years than a group of horses used for other 'horse sports' (these are lesson horses, western horses, trail horses).
I do agree with the poster regarding some of the AQHA lines. Some horses are being bred for massive bodies on legs and hooves that don't seem to serve them well in the long term. I also oppose AQHA's staunch support of slaughter in the us and the amount of $$ they send in that direction.
How are we as a compassionate, caring people so capable of cruelty. How is that cruelty to animals not translated to people. The answer, it is.
We are becoming cruel, inhumane people. I think all who participate and support in this sport should pay the price and bear the consequences.
I could upchunk seeing rich and lifted people cheering in the sportsnews video whereas a horse laying in the dust with two broken bones, unable to standup anymore. If the vet commenting the injuries take honest his job and would have had guts, he needs to have accuse the racing industry for let horse-kids race, abuse them with doping, and not proper train them for competition.
Cut the money for the 3-year-old races to 1/10 and make the Derby a race for 4-year-old and older horses. And add at least 1/4 distance.
I have loved horses since I was three and have been involved with training & showing horses for over 35 years. And anyone involved with horses, with any sense, will tell you this...they are incredibly special beings that allow themselves to be used by another species. Many of us recognize this and understand how fortunate & blessed we are for these relationships. Then are those that only see $$ and opportunities to use something that can't say no (without repercussions).
Thorobreds, especially, begin their careers way too soon. And galloping at will in a field IS DIFFERENT than the excessive & extreme demands of track racing with added weight and adjustments for balance in unnatural turns. IT IS DIFFERENT - and horses who may "choose not to cooperate" are not treated well.
And when a human athletes inject themselves with drugs - they have chosen to cheat and risk health problems. There is no justification on earth that excuses many of the actions people inflict on animals.
Finally - if as many jockeys died on the track as horses, there would be an outcry to change things. And as long as we choose not to look at ugly things - they will jump out at you one day with such a potential to do severe damage. When we talk about the heart and courage of horses, those that speak of it should be humbled at the superiority horses have over people in these elements of character.
Eight Belles (and Barbaro) deserve more than Honor & Glory. They deserve the truth.