Originally Posted by
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.
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