Here we go again...

[Desert Orchid]

The BBC anti-racing agenda looks set to rear its ugly head again:

https://www.racingpost.com/news/lat...-at-the-centre-of-panorama-documentary/500348

Don't get me wrong. If anyone is shown to have acted in anything other than the best interests of the horse then they should be exposed and dealt with but I fear it will be anything but balanced.

I would also suggest that so long as a horse, the best interests of which are served by euthanasia (which, for me, should only be as a very last resort), has been PTS painlessly, then what happens next, in terms of meriting the adjective "grisly", is down to human subjectivity.

One could argue that the equine remains' being put into the food chain or industry could be regarded as a very "green" outcome.

 

[trudij]

Agree totally. Could not believe what I was reading when I saw it on Facebook yesterday and haven’t commented because I just don’t have the words. Talking about what happens to racehorses after racing by going to abbatoirs and completely ignoring the thousands who are rehomed successfully ? It’s sick. Might as well be produced by Peta


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[jinnyj]

Trouble is the Social Media brigade will be all over it and it will be extremely unwelcome publicity. Racing should have someone already in place to quash things like this with facts and figures not get caught out and be seen to be humming and haaing. They do not help themselves.

Take the case of the 17yo Point to Pointer that dropped dead that I mentioned a couple of months ago. The BHA have their heads completely in the sand over this. They do not seem to understand that prevention is better than cure and you need to be able to address these situations in advance. I get comments such as “oh it could happened in its field” “oh 18yo horses go round Badminton” “oh look at Sonny Somers....!” But the bottom line is that horses being made to run in a race are doing far more physically and the strain is far greater to their bodies. And older bodies in particular.

Recently I filled in the BHA survey about whip use. And my views have changed a lot over the years. I said whips should only be carried as a device to correct not as a means to make a horse go faster. Because even if the whips have been cushioned so the are apparently no worse than getting hit with a cotton bud, you are still using them as a means to frighten an animal into going faster so that it can win a race. There is no getting away from that. And it’s a damned difficult argument to defend to someone ignorant of racing.

Times are changing and Racing needs to adapt. Outside scrutiny of the sport will not go away.

 

[trudij]

I think that’s what I’m the most astonished by - I only found out about this tv program from a Facebook group I’m in. I’d be THRILLED to be proved wrong and they are all shouting loudly about it, but Ive seen nothing about it on any social media from anyone who is in a position to counter anything - not the BHA, the jockey club, none of the racing presenters - and worse still, not the ROR or any of the many centres who rehome and help the horses after. Somewhere between shares and retweets you’d think I’d have spotted something. What the FRIG Is going on that this can be unchallenged ??


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[barjon]

The trouble is that the facts will be there to be seen. You can’t excuse murder because most people aren’t murdered and you can’t by the same token duck the fact that some racehorses will have been mistreated or wrongly killed in retirement. You can bet your bottom dollar there will be precious little balance in the piece.

Aside from this programme there are several things that are a bit disquieting still around that give a bad impression (at the very least) to onlookers. Jinny has mentioned the whip issue, but what about the routine forcing of upset horses into the stalls, particular when some jockeys resort to heaving on their tails to “encourage” them. Not a nice sight to the casual onlooker.

 

[trudij]

I’m all for outing the bad apples in the basket - and I’m very much in favour of anything that makes the horse’s life better. I’m like kirsty in that my opinion of the whip has changed a lot over the years ( just for an example)
I just hate that this is sounding like it’s going to be a heavily biased piece of tv which will have absolutely no ( or at best, token) balance at all - it’s not about other aspects of racing, it’s about what happens to the horses when they finish.

I’ve always been an advocate of there being a lot worse fates than death for any animal - and if it’s done with the kind of care that a good abattoir does it, then I don’t even mind too much if horses go off to be sold for meat - the price isn’t great, I wish we ate horse meat as a standard thing here, that would at least mean we can control the horse population better and there would be a lot less neglect ( but that’s just my opinion and also a different conversation !)

The public need educating about all kind of racing things - why horses can’t always be saved when they break, what the whip actually does, how horses are broken in and selected to start up to be two year olds, what happens to the horses who retire ( all aspects of that !) and how you go through retraining and rehoming - all these things and many more are what the general public don’t understand and racing doesn’t shout loud enough about. There’s no point coming out after things like this program to condemn it, the damage is already done - we need to be out there showing people so that these shows like the one on Monday don’t get a foothold in the minds of people who are on the outside.

The powers that be also need to be seen to punish people who break the rules properly. There should be no room in the sport for anyone who is proved to be cheating - better punishments are needed for drug cheats ( horse ones!) With standards from “oops, fed the horse from the wrong bucket” right up to Bob Baffert and his repeat offences ) to the much more public things like Whip misuse and all manner of things like that. You’ve got to come down hard or there’s no incentive to stop.


Sorry - got a bit ranty then and dipped on and off topic [emoji2356][emoji2356]


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[edgt]

This is just the start of a concerted effort to ban racing outright, and the BBC or other broadcasters with little or no racing output or interest for whatever reason will gladly kill it off for ratings, a bit like Boris did for Brexit.
Like alcohol or cocaine, being anti is a short term solution for a long term problem.