I was going to write about welfare issues in horse racing – but, to be honest, I just don’t feel like it right now, so that blog is delayed, but it will come here eventually.
But in the interim, have a look at the recent British Horseracing Authority report on the subject – click here.
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Regulatory reform should include mandatory bookmarking of any .pdf longer than 20pp. It could be enforced by ICO with powers to levy enormous fines or preferably imprisonment for compliance failures. The regulation would be retrospective.
It’s a long document – but the Appendix on use of the whip is most definitely worth a read.
Maybe the BHA will one day follow the example of Norway and ban it.
It’s utter bollocks!
I’ve spent my whole working career at the top of corporate advertising; I know when spin is spun back at me. Waffle text on sustainability and legacy mixed with large graphic graphs and artistic cute horse images should fool nobody with half a brain.
The text is enough to tell you all you need to know, this is about the financial exploitation of animals for the benefit of human beings. Like everything else in our society, we have a throw away mentality. These horses are no different, yes the winners are pampered in retirement, because they can still make money, but the old nags are discarded.
“Euthanasia is also sometimes utilised for economic reasons, when a horse is potentially treatable but where the cost and timescales of remedial care are prohibitive, or where it will not be possible to return the horse to an athletic function. This can potentially apply at any stage of a horse’s life. While this is also sometimes a valid route, it should only happen once other options have been properly assessed.
All of us will have an opinion on “what’s right with conservation or what’s wrong with conservation” within this world, this blog has a pretty low opinion on farmers and moor owners, but I suspect very few if any of you have actually sat down to talk to either.
Those of you who follow the sport of kings and as well seek to ban grouse moors should realise that both sports have more in common than you think with a simultantaneous linkage that animals die and people make money and gratification. Both supporters of these ‘sports’ seem to have an amnesic dysfunctional disability regarding their own interests.
Do I think those who bet are stupid? Pretty much so! Especially when there are easier ways to accumulate wealth than equine betting.
Those reading I suspect won’t seek to critically question the blog authors’ duplicity in liking betting, it’s not what followers do? It’s far from me to stand on my soapbox and condemn Dr Avery and others for liking a bet. Likewise, for those who wish to shoot, my opinion is I disagree with both ‘sports’.
But all animals should have equal rights, and who’s more worthy than a man who campaigned for human rights to have the most intelligent statement.
“One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable.
We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
There’s no argument against that, especially with what’s transpiring now through our world.
Trying to bring equivalence between Mark’s ‘support’ of horse racing and the intense propaganda emanating from the driven grouse shooting industry is pretty ridiculous.