You Know It's Triple Crown Season When...

[Bast]

You know it's Triple Crown Season when someone writes the annual trashing of racing as a cruel and terrible sport, whining from someone who knows little about racing or horses. If they did, they would know how much the TB foal crop has shrunk over recent years, and how many of the slaughter horses and animal welfare cases are not track horses, but pets that people lost interest in or stopped feeding.

Every year, a handful of guys from the boondocks files the right paperwork for having a holiday display on Fountain Square in My Fair City. They go by the law. So, come Christmas season, the Ku Klux Klan, all 4-5 of them, puts up a cross and the tv networks come and talk about Cincinnati as some kind of vortex of racial craziness. One year all of these guys were in jail, and could not get out and get a permit in time, so we were spared. [White people tear down this display, so now the Cincinnati Police are tasked with protecting it, since it is legally put up...]

It's the same of sensationalism.

Racing Should Care for Its Own
By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
Published: May 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/21/sports/racing-industry-should-care-for-its-own.html?_r=2

I covered my last Triple Crown race, the Kentucky Derby, three years ago. Eight Belles, only the 39th filly to run the race, nearly beat the heavily favored Big Brown. Shortly after crossing the finish line, Eight Belles collapsed and was euthanized, marking one of the saddest days in Triple Crown history.

That was it for racing and me.

Two years earlier, May 20, 2006, I was trackside at Pimlico for the Preakness to witness the wonder horse Barbaro attempt to win the second leg of the Triple Crown. Instead, Barbaro false-started, fracturing three bones in his right hind leg. After a heroic battle by veterinarians, Barbaro lost his battle for life and was euthanized on Jan. 29, 2007.

Over the next two years, the public learned how cruel the Sport of Kings could be — especially on young horses — the physical wear and tear, the drugs used to get sore horses to post, to push them beyond their limitations.

We learned more about racing’s dark side, the terrible fate that awaited horses that did not make the grade or were simply used up and spent — sold at auction and shipped to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico.

This unrepentant industry exists solely for the pleasure of gamblers and gambling. Three years later, how much has changed? Sadly, not much.

¶ Racing is a reactive, not proactive, industry, which responds to threats, scandal and public tragedy.

¶ It lacks uniform standards across racing jurisdictions regarding drugs and training-related deaths and injuries.

¶ It is plagued by too many breakdowns.

¶ Its horses are bred for speed, not durability.

¶ The same-day drugging of horses for races is tolerated and even promoted in the United States like no other place.

Last month, Representative Edward Whitfield, Republican of Kentucky, and Senator Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, introduced companion bills that called for stiff penalties, including a permanent ban for trainers whose horses tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. A first violation would carry a $5,000 fine and a suspension of 180 days. A second would carry a minimum fine of $10,000 and a one-year suspension. A third would result in a permanent ban from all activities related to racing.

Several factions within the racing industry paid lip service to embracing the legislation. The most powerful group, the Jockey Club, did not endorse the legislation.

But the central moral issue facing the industry is overbreeding, a practice that contributes to the continued flow of castoff thoroughbreds into slaughter pipelines.

PETA has developed a plan that would allow racing to care for its retired thoroughbreds. PETA is urging the Jockey Club to adopt what it calls the New Thoroughbred 360 Lifecycle Fund, which would provide money for the care of retired racehorses that otherwise would be sent to slaughter.
The PETA proposal calls for a $360 foal registration fee starting in 2012, a one-time $360 fee for broodmare and stallion registration effective 2012; a $360 fee for every ownership transfer, including claims, effective 2013. PETA estimates that the fees would total about $20 million a year.

“We began to look into what the retirement plans are, and they’re practically nonexistent,” said Kathy Guillermo, the PETA vice president.
Since 2009, the Jockey Club has offered a check-off box on its registration papers. An applicant can give a $2 donation to the retirement of thoroughbreds. Guillermo said the volunteer check boxes had generated roughly $43,000.

“We thought that this needs to be an obligation, not a donation,” she said. “It would not take very much money from the industry itself to put a really good program in place.”

In response to PETA’s proposal, the Jockey Club issued a statement:
“We continually explore and review programs and initiatives that could potentially enhance the welfare of retired thoroughbreds, but it is not the role of the Jockey Club to mandate specific courses of action for owners when it comes to making contribution decisions for retraining and retirement programs.”

This hardly seems acceptable in an industry in which an estimated 10,000 horses from the United States end up slaughtered for meat every year, according to PETA.

Wayne Pacelle, the president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, embraces the PETA proposal and the underlying premise behind it: an industry should care for its own.

“Why should we be picking up the bill for the reckless decision of others?” Pacelle said Friday from Italy, where he participated in an animal rights forum. “The people who are creating the problems should be helping to finance the care network for the discards.”

In his book, “The Bond: Our Kinship With Animals, Our Call to Defend Them,” Pacelle argues that no animal has had a more profound impact on the American experience, including the expansion of America, than the horse.

“To treat them like a cheap, throwaway commodity today is a betrayal of our bond and our historical debt to these creatures,” he said.

The horse racing industry must do better. But is this industry capable of doing better?

From Eight Belles to Barbaro to thousands of horses in between, racing is a brutal game that grinds up young horses.

Humans can say, “Enough.”

Who speaks for the thoroughbreds?
E-mail: [email protected]

[bdw0617]

I take it you don't care for the article


I will say this, the guy makes 2 points that I don't think can be disputed


1.l putting a 2 dollar donation checkbox on a registration form is just not going to work and is laughable as a real solution


2. I kinda wish the jockey club would get behind the breeders 360 program thing. I don't see why that won't work. I don't discriminate where good ideas come from, and that's not a bad idea.

[Shergar]

xx

[bdw0617]

I take it you don't care for the article


I will say this, the guy makes 2 points that I don't think can be disputed


1.l putting a 2 dollar donation checkbox on a registration form is just not going to work and is laughable as a real solution


2. I kinda wish the jockey club would get behind the breeders 360 program thing. I don't see why that won't work. I don't discriminate where good ideas come from, and that's not a bad idea.

The big time breeders/owners etc. Yes, they can afford it.

The little guys are already almost squeezed dry.

Regards,
Shergar

I used to sale cars back in the day, a long time ago. At one point I sold new infiniti's. An avg SUV costs about 58k, avg mid sized svu costs mid 40's, a nice coupe would run you high 30's.

when doing my 4 square i would always make sure that i put a 20% down payment as my est. Very rarely did I expect people to actually put 20% down, but i had to start somewhere. however, made sure i at least got 10% out of them for the amount of the car.

If you are looking at a 60 thousand dollar car and you can't put down 6 thousand dollars, you just might not need a 60 thousand dollar car. It's the truth and it works 99% of the time. It gets your payments down ("and puts money in my pocket lol) to something alot more manageable on a per month basis and puts you in the black when you want to trade in. No one gives a damn about the "small time" car buyers lol you can either afford it or you can't. Better we find out now than 2 years later and we have the ripo man looking for you.

If you are looking to breed a horse, and you can't pay 360 dollars.. then you might not need to be breeding. It's the cold hard truth.

[Bast]

I take it you don't care for the article


I will say this, the guy makes 2 points that I don't think can be disputed


1.l putting a 2 dollar donation checkbox on a registration form is just not going to work and is laughable as a real solution


2. I kinda wish the jockey club would get behind the breeders 360 program thing. I don't see why that won't work. I don't discriminate where good ideas come from, and that's not a bad idea.

The big time breeders/owners etc. Yes, they can afford it.

The little guys are already almost squeezed dry.

Regards,
Shergar

I used to sale cars back in the day, a long time ago. At one point I sold new infiniti's. An avg SUV costs about 58k, avg mid sized svu costs mid 40's, a nice coupe would run you high 30's.

when doing my 4 square i would always make sure that i put a 20% down payment as my est. Very rarely did I expect people to actually put 20% down, but i had to start somewhere. however, made sure i at least got 10% out of them for the amount of the car.

If you are looking at a 60 thousand dollar car and you can't put down 6 thousand dollars, you just might not need a 60 thousand dollar car. It's the truth and it works 99% of the time. It gets your payments down ("and puts money in my pocket lol) to something alot more manageable on a per month basis and puts you in the black when you want to trade in. No one gives a damn about the "small time" car buyers lol you can either afford it or you can't. Better we find out now than 2 years later and we have the ripo man looking for you.

If you are looking to breed a horse, and you can't pay 360 dollars.. then you might not need to be breeding. It's the cold hard truth.

$360 per registration is not going to take care of all the unwanted TBs in this country. It will only make more unregistered--and unsellable--TBs.

What we need is an ethical culture that takes care of its responsibilities. I took care of my horses through unemployment and terrible times.

I don't want mandates from any agency telling me what I must do. The Feds are already in my toilet tank and my light sockets. I would like to make it easier to seize badly debilitated, neglected animals.

[bdw0617]

I take it you don't care for the article


I will say this, the guy makes 2 points that I don't think can be disputed


1.l putting a 2 dollar donation checkbox on a registration form is just not going to work and is laughable as a real solution


2. I kinda wish the jockey club would get behind the breeders 360 program thing. I don't see why that won't work. I don't discriminate where good ideas come from, and that's not a bad idea.

The big time breeders/owners etc. Yes, they can afford it.

The little guys are already almost squeezed dry.

Regards,
Shergar

I used to sale cars back in the day, a long time ago. At one point I sold new infiniti's. An avg SUV costs about 58k, avg mid sized svu costs mid 40's, a nice coupe would run you high 30's.

when doing my 4 square i would always make sure that i put a 20% down payment as my est. Very rarely did I expect people to actually put 20% down, but i had to start somewhere. however, made sure i at least got 10% out of them for the amount of the car.

If you are looking at a 60 thousand dollar car and you can't put down 6 thousand dollars, you just might not need a 60 thousand dollar car. It's the truth and it works 99% of the time. It gets your payments down ("and puts money in my pocket lol) to something alot more manageable on a per month basis and puts you in the black when you want to trade in. No one gives a damn about the "small time" car buyers lol you can either afford it or you can't. Better we find out now than 2 years later and we have the ripo man looking for you.

If you are looking to breed a horse, and you can't pay 360 dollars.. then you might not need to be breeding. It's the cold hard truth.

$360 per registration is not going to take care of all the unwanted TBs in this country. It will only make more unregistered--and unsellable--TBs.

What we need is an ethical culture that takes care of its responsibilities. I took care of my horses through unemployment and terrible times.

I don't want mandates from any agency telling me what I must do. The Feds are already in my toilet tank and my light sockets. I would like to make it easier to seize badly debilitated, neglected animals.

would agree that that solution is not better than what we have now? even if it isn't perfect?


it's like, two people walking from one city to the other, arguing about which which car is better, a porsche or a bmw lol, not realzing that a kia is a damn good upgrade from what they currently have.

that 22 million, is alot better than 43 thousand. might not be perfect. but alot of horses would be saved that are not being saved now.

[Shergar]

xx

[Georgerz]

This is a posting in the Huffington Post, in the Preakness review, not by a writer, but a person who posts in the comments section:
"
ScottishScript
"I am not a number, I am a person!" .


140 Fans

Become a fan


.

1 hour ago (8:28 PM)
Instead of horses why not pluck pairs of disturbed patients from Victorian era asylums, dress them in horse costumes and off we go, ‘The Freakness.­’

People call horse racing a sport but really? A petite male in psychedeli­c pyjamas clinging to a rampaging mammal is sport? People in horse racing tell us their animals just LOVE racing and wouldn’t want to do anything else. Well of course, if ‘anything else’ happens to be a trip to the glue factory.

Can you think of another sport where if a participan­t breaks a leg his medical treatment involves a bullet in the skull? Imagine that happening in a football game. And yes, that could be cool.

When you think of it, most sports involve humans playing other humans either individual­ly or as a team. For me there’s something not quite right once you introduce another, far less intelligen­t mammal into the mix. Then again Lions are less intelligen­t yet Romans found a ‘sporting’ use for them, so maybe I’m wrong?

Some call Foxhunting a sport. Humans riding horses, accompanie­d with dogs so they can tear a single fox to bits. Who among them WANTS to participat­e? At least Bullfighti­ng is less pretentiou­s.

One day scientists may invent a Doctor Doolittle like translator­, and if that day ever comes, I’m not sure we’re going to enjoy hearing what the animals have to say to us.

'The Freakness,­' I’m telling you. “I’ll give you 10-1 on Fruit of the Loon.”

Talk about misinformation, ignorance and petulance.

[Sailor Kenshin]

I don't want mandates from any agency telling me what I must do. The Feds are already in my toilet tank and my light sockets. ...

And other places they don't belong.... don't give them any ideas.

[Bast]

This is a posting in the Huffington Post, in the Preakness review, not by a writer, but a person who posts in the comments section:
"
ScottishScript
"I am not a number, I am a person!" .


140 Fans

Become a fan


.

1 hour ago (8:28 PM)
Instead of horses why not pluck pairs of disturbed patients from Victorian era asylums, dress them in horse costumes and off we go, ‘The Freakness.­’

People call horse racing a sport but really? A petite male in psychedeli­c pyjamas clinging to a rampaging mammal is sport? People in horse racing tell us their animals just LOVE racing and wouldn’t want to do anything else. Well of course, if ‘anything else’ happens to be a trip to the glue factory.

Can you think of another sport where if a participan­t breaks a leg his medical treatment involves a bullet in the skull? Imagine that happening in a football game. And yes, that could be cool.

When you think of it, most sports involve humans playing other humans either individual­ly or as a team. For me there’s something not quite right once you introduce another, far less intelligen­t mammal into the mix. Then again Lions are less intelligen­t yet Romans found a ‘sporting’ use for them, so maybe I’m wrong?

Some call Foxhunting a sport. Humans riding horses, accompanie­d with dogs so they can tear a single fox to bits. Who among them WANTS to participat­e? At least Bullfighti­ng is less pretentiou­s.

One day scientists may invent a Doctor Doolittle like translator­, and if that day ever comes, I’m not sure we’re going to enjoy hearing what the animals have to say to us.

'The Freakness,­' I’m telling you. “I’ll give you 10-1 on Fruit of the Loon.”

Talk about misinformation, ignorance and petulance.

Imagine these people writing the Federal regulations to govern racing.

You better believe that these self-anointed experts will be the ones to write the regulations. They are the people who know what is best for the vast, ignorant masses who barely know how to fall out of bed in the morning, and who are now installing video cameras to observe what kids are putting on their lunch trays to be certain they are selecting the proper food.

Racing has to police itself. There is a push to grab power at the Federal level, and racing doesn't need to be under that thumb as well. Other countries run clean, high-level racing. Their methods should be reviewed and adopted, with involvement no higher than the state level.

[jonservidio]

I just read the article regarding Shackletons win over at yahoo, the ignorance is mind boggling, from the author, and the comments
if that is indicative(and I believe it is) of the public perception, God help us all,

http://sports.yahoo.com/rah/news?slug=ap-preakness

One ton of horseflesh all but screamed, “Get me out of here.”

[bdw0617]

The best thing you can do with those types is just to simply ignore them. Because they are ignorant. I may do alot of things, but I don't argue with truly ignorant people. It's pointless.


We , and by we I mean the people here and the hard core fans, and the people who breed and the people who gamble daily and the people who own, we live in a wrap so to speak. We go to Equidaily and get our horse racing news, you see a few bad articles here or there, and you think that's the general perception of horse racing.

People think the opposite of love is hate. That's not true. Hate and love are actually very similar because to hate something you have to care about it in the first place. No, the opposite of love is indifference. This is not the war that needs fought. You can't do anything about someone who has a bad image of a sport or a thing. I hate golf. There is nothing that anyone can do that will make me like golf short of well, use your imagination. But at least I have an opinion about golf. There are alot of people who do not know enough about horse racing to even form an opinion about rather they like it or not.

THAT, not some attention whoring look at me girl trying to look hipster by bashing horse racing like everyone else, is what is killing the sport.

I mean think about it. Take ESPN. ESPN, one of their biggest clients is .under Armour, as far as what they promote and a lot of teams, including the national champions in football, have under armor as a sponsor. Cam Netwon just singed a 2 million dollar endorsement deal with under armor. Now these same people who will hoot and holler about how no one really likes horse racing will show up on a Saturday morning decked out in under armor gear to the brim to support their team, rotfl probalby while drinking vitamin water, not knowing that the same races that they "refuse to watch", the guy who owns under owns one of the most prestigious horse racing stables in the country (sagamore farm)


I don't want to be come one of those sam snobs, the type of person that thinks your stuff doesn't stink because you are into horse racing, but, some people just aren't to be taken seriously. Do you think that ESPN pays a damn bit attention to the woman who still thinks we are in the 70's who doesn't understand why ESPN would spend so much money broadcasting a violent sport? of course not.

you can't make them all happy, nor should you want to

[TJ]

The Jockey Club came up with a good idea, well at least it's a start....they are trying to bring together ex-race horses and their owners with people wanting to adopt and care for these animals. Horses that are done with racing are still useful animals, capable of a wide variety of other venues, in the equine world. Any owner's looking for placement of a retired race horse can sign up at the link in this article. TJ
http://www.drf.com/news/jockey-club-sta ... n-resource

[bdw0617]

It's a good idea, it really is, but let's be realistic, horses are expensive, and I mean you just can't walk into petco and buy a new race horse.

we breed upwards of 30k horses a year, most of them need homes when they are done racing. Anyone want to est. how many people are willing to adpat a horse every year? I doubt it's anywhere near 30k people.

You can only train so many police horses, dressage horses, show jumpers, you can only have so many pets. IF we are not willing to reduce the amount of horses we breed, let's at least be realistic about the ones we breed's future after the race track.

[Bast]

It's a good idea, it really is, but let's be realistic, horses are expensive, and I mean you just can't walk into petco and buy a new race horse.

we breed upwards of 30k horses a year, most of them need homes when they are done racing. Anyone want to est. how many people are willing to adpat a horse every year? I doubt it's anywhere near 30k people.

You can only train so many police horses, dressage horses, show jumpers, you can only have so many pets. IF we are not willing to reduce the amount of horses we breed, let's at least be realistic about the ones we breed's future after the race track.

If laws are put in place such that only people who can pledge enough money per foal equal to lifetime support, there will only be a few thousand or a few hundred born every year.

What do you think happens to excess horses in Europe or Japan?