Random Stuff

[Galvatran]

Cross counter won.

No g-string then.

[Caffinetron]

I used to always put a maximum $60 on the cup with various horses until I started a new job a couple of years ago. As I am always stuck in the office with this job I don't get a chance to pop into a TAB. Now I am just as happy to watch it on TV, however I am always saddened when a horse goes down. It is the nature of the sport albeit a brutal one.
I have worked with horses for a couple of years in the US and I love the animals. I don't agree with the amount of money that is put down on the race each year, the corruption of inside knowledge and the whole glamour of the race.

[GoktimusPrime]

Not sure if juvenile horses should be made to race, especially if they're already physically unfit to do so prior to the race.

[Autocon]

It is the nature of the sport albeit a brutal one.

Is this the right attitude to have? Horses are a living being not a commodity.

[GoktimusPrime]

Is this the right attitude to have? Horses are a living being not a commodity.

Are you suggesting that freedom is the right of all sentient beings?

[TaZZerath]

Since I own horses, I'll weigh in for my own thoughts on this one.

Horses are living breathing animals, true. And you form a special bond with them which is unlike any other, which I didn't understand until I owned some.

At the end of the day, the fact is though that horses are bred for this sort of thing, right or wrong. Horses have been, for a VERY VERY long time now, tamed and bred and crossbred by humans for modes of transport, heavy lifting, and recreational use from simple trail rides to horse racing. Accidents can happen at any time, its just these ones are front and center, in the limelight, for everyone to see. You could be having a simple trail ride, and your horse could get spooked by a rabbit darting out in front of it, and a similar injury could happen. Is there going to be a massive uproar against riding horses altogether as a result?

Similarly, jockeys who ride these powerful animals always ride knowing that there is an incredible risk on their lives to do so. They wear next to nothing (oweing to weight to get the maximum performance out of a horse) and the slightest nudge or bump or trip could send them off to hospital with major injuries or worse.

Other animals are similarly bred; dogs for example are bred for racing (greyhounds), working (kelpies, sheepdogs), aghility, showing.... the list goes on.

If you own an animal, then you do everything you can for that animal if you're a responsible animal owner, and the reaction of the poor horses owner showed they truly did care. But horse injuries when they happen are VERY hard to recover from, and the speeds these animals do often makes them even worse. A horse relies on its legs and euthanasing a horse is a tough decision, but if a horse cannot stand or walk properly they are likely to become depressed, miserable and/or injure itself even worse (as they sometimes lay down to sleep or roll)

I've seen a lot of horses up close and in action and when they are racing, jumping, etc you can SEE they are truly enjoying it, and why not, going fast is FUN for both horse and rider most of the time. Plus years of breeding and genetics has them 'built' this way. To put them sitting in a paddock eating grass can sometimes actually depress a horse more because they aren't doing what they instinctively want to do, which is RUN, and run FAST.

Yes there will always be those who treat horses, or any animals, poorly. Yes, accidents will happen. But also remember that for some jockeys, trainers and horses, this is what they love to do and they do it right and for the right reasons, not greed or cruelty.

For what its worth, we go to watch the horses run at these events, and accidents are very few and far between for both horse and rider. We place $1 each way bets only purely for a bit of fun. We've also been to eventing (which is a combination of Dressage, Cross Country and Showjumping), showjumping only events, trots, and injuries are very rare.

As long as we have animals as companions, people are going to want to show them off, and compete in a whole range of sports, and we have been breeding animals and 'building' them specifically for roles that suit humans being at the top of the food chain. There will always be a dark seedy underside (such is human nature) and it doesn't make it right, and when accidents happen at very public events it brings it into everyone's minds as really bad, however there for all the terrible things that happen there are plenty of positives; horses loving what they are bred for, trainers enjoying seeing these animals run, jockeys feeling the wind in their hair.

[UltraMarginal]

A well thought out statement TaZZerath.

[Trent]

The issue I have is that these horses are pushed to their physical limits, greatly increasing the risk and severity of serious injury. A nice calm horse ride cannot be compared to a race for that reason. Also while not all, a large portion of owners of race horses view the animals as investments. And what does any sensible person do when an investment stops giving a reasonable return? You get rid of it.

I have no doubt that race horses love to race. It’s what they are bred to do. But the horse also does not understand the risks involved, nor the consequences should there be an incident. These animals trust their trainers/owners. And there are far too many examples in the racing industry of that trust being abused. All for money.

[GoktimusPrime]

Confession: gonna go off on a complete tangent here.

Plus years of breeding and genetics has them 'built' this way. To put them sitting in a paddock eating grass can sometimes actually depress a horse more because they aren't doing what they instinctively want to do, which is RUN, and run FAST.

If by "years" you mean "millennia," then yes, you're absolutely right. Horses were first domesticated by humans on the Eurasian steppes about 5500 years ago. And yes, there is definitely a bond between humans and horses. I don't own any animals, but scientifically speaking all domesticated animals have some genetically in built propensity to... well... relate to humans.

And this is no accident. Ever wondered why only some animals like dogs, cats, horses, cows, sheep etc. have been domesticated, while others like zebras, lions, tigers etc. remain wild? Even wild animals that have been born and raised in captivity can still easily turn wild. The truth is that they've always been wild. Again, no accident.

When humans first figured out how to domesticate animals, one of the single biggest factors that they had to consider was the animal's temperament. One reason why horses have been domesticated but zebras haven't is partially due to temperament (the other being that zebras aren't physically capable of load-bearing like horses can). Zebras are really aggressive and hostile pricks. Far different from their tame equine cousins. And they have to be, considering that zebras share habitats with big hunting animals like jackals, lions, leopards etc. - they evolved a mean streak as a behavioural means of defence. Horses can gallop away from predators, but zebras are more likely to be outrun by things like freakin' cheetahs, so they also needed to be prepared to kick the crap out of anything that comes near them.

So you take this already more amicable temperament in certain animals. Humans then take them and take care of them. Provide food, shelter etc. - a bond forms. The animal learns to trust the human and soon forms a form of mutual relationship. Thus the animal has become a member of the household, and the Latin word for house is domus (as in the notorious Monty Python line, "Romani Ite Domum" ("Romans go home")), and thus anything that is of the house is domesticus. The household animal is now domesticated.

But that's not all! Some animals may have actually initiated domestication with humans! Yeah. Instead of humans seeking out these animals, some animals came and sought humans out! 2 common examples: dogs and cats. It's believed that the earliest ancestor of the domesticated dog (which would've been more wolf-like) approached human settlements and started defending those humans from things like other animals. The humans started rewarding them with food and shelter, and thus dog became man's best friend. Early ancestors of the domesticated cat did something similar; and for some odd reasons, in two different places independently of each other -- in the Middle East and China. Although I think modern domesticated cats are descendant from the ones that were domesticated in the Middle East. Anyway, these early felines, similar to their canine brethren, approached humans and started killing off vermin like rats, who were eating away at the humans' stored food supplies. And just as with dogs, humans rewarded the cats with food, shelter and uploading videos.

There are 14,200 year old graves that show humans buried alongside dogs. Cats were domesticated about roughly 8000 years ago, and we know that Ancient civilisations like Egypt even started making cat memes^worshipping them. Domestication of animals was a big deal and something that seriously allowed societies to evolve into civilisations. Domesticating livestock meant that we could farm our meat and dairy and that we didn't have to waste time and resources hunting and gathering all the time; agricultural upgrade! Domestication of other animals again freed us to develop more things -- we were wasting as much time chasing rats or fleeing from predators. We had cats to chase away our pests and dogs to protect us now. And we even formed an alliance with dogs as pack hunters.

Contrast this with societies that didn't do this, like Australia. Australians never fully domesticated any animals, and this was really because there are no native animals here that have the appropriate traits for domestication. The closest they came to was the semi-domestication of the dingo. And this was because dingoes are descendant from already previously domesticated stone-age dogs who'd migrated to the Australian continent, but then they evolved without human companionship and became feral. But the Indigenous Australians did occasionally use dingoes as cooperative hunters and watchdogs, but they were never truly domesticated.

[Autocon]

No g-string then.

Not on the horse, just the jockies lucky g-string. It worked!!