I hate PETA.

 

There is something more going on than we know though. NO WAY the horse breaks BOTH its ankles AFTER the cool down lap and no signs before.

 

I love horse racing but changes need to be made or it will get nasty.

 

What are you going to change though? Thats the million dollar question. You cant changed the entire breeding aspect. Breeding has changed dramatically over the last 10 years or so. And I believe the breeding is the number one reason why we are seeing high end race horses break down in big time races. (Derby, Preakness, Breeders Cup.)

I don't know many people who are treated as good as the high dollar horses. :laugh:

 

Yep - stud farm is a much better retirement plan that I have.

Yep - stud farm is a much better retirement plan that I have.

No doubt!

The stat that was given on ESPN today was that 1.6 out of every 1,000 thorobred starters is put down due to race-day injury in this country. While that doesn't sound like a lot, how many starts will, for example, a Churchhill Downs, Keeneland or Turfway have in a season - how many race days, how many races each day and how many starters in each race?

 

Not the best odds when there's even money that I'll have to be put down after three years on the job.

Any thread that gets this many BGPers to agree on the same thing deserves to be a classic thread for no other reason.

We live in a world where animals are treated better than humans. We live in a world where abusing animals carry a harsher sentence than abusing another human. And it's one of the reasons why our nation is circling the toilet.

The article is another great example of PETA's "shoot first, ask questions later" philosophy.

The stat that was given on ESPN today was that 1.6 out of every 1,000 thorobred starters is put down due to race-day injury in this country. While that doesn't sound like a lot, how many starts will, for example, a Churchhill Downs, Keeneland or Turfway have in a season - how many race days, how many races each day and how many starters in each race?

 

Not the best odds when there's even money that I'll have to be put down after three years on the job.

 

 

The stat ESPN and the 2 veterinarians gave was 2 a day..................

My stepmother is a real big horse freak. Her and my father have like 30 horses. lol She says from the way the horse looked when it was running early in the race, something was already wrong. She suspects they doped to the horse up to run the race.

 

She's wrong.

Its not that the horse had already broken its ankles, its the fact that with the ability to drug a horse up on race day the horse could have raced through some stress or pain. Then if the horse began to favor the ankle a jockey would now to stop the horse. I in no way agree with PETA or the way they go about things. Its just a shame that this tradgedy has overshadowed Big Brown's victory.

 

She says(she has worked on ranches all her life) that you can get those kind of horses to endure anything with the right amount of drugs. Her ankles werent broken in the early race, but they were going that way fast; and her trainers probably knew this would happen.

 

I'm not buying it..

 

Could you continue to run on a broken ankle, doped up or not?

 

I couldn't

I made the comment to a co-worker yesterday that I can blow out my knee and take meds to lessen the pain but there is no way I am going to be as fast as a healthy me.

I'm not buying it..

 

Could you continue to run on a broken ankle, doped up or not?

 

I couldn't

 

There point is that the horse may have had a small problem with her ankle and they doped her up so she wouldn't feel it. But the small problem became a break and thats when broke down. However, as I said above, horses of this caliber are not doped up to hide an injury. Are claiming horses that are running for a 10,000$ purse? Of course they are. But not horses that are worth millions in the breeding industry and race for millions of dollars in purse money.

 

Look at Rags to Riches last year. They found a small stress fracture in her leg and retired her immediately. The connections of Eight Belles are the same as Hard Spun last year, so its not like they had huge "Derby Fever" and Eight Belles wasn't their first or last chance at a Derby starter.

I have heard a lot of conspiracy theorist since Saturday saying, "There is no way both ankles broke at the same time. There must have been an earlier injury that was being masked with drugs or some other nefarious activity was at hand." That is all a bunch of bull!!!

 

IMVHO I think that during the run out after the race she sustained an injury to one ankle that prevented her from carrying any weight on that leg and when she went to set the other leg that it was with such force in an awkward manner that it cause the second injury. It may not have happened this way but I feel this is much more plausible than some of the stuffed being spewed by PETA and others of their ilk.

This is rediculous.. I also heard they want to band the use of a whip.

I think the rules should be changed to require a minimum jockey weight of 300 lbs. This would slow the speed of the horses and reduce the risk of injury.