A Bloody Business

[poliphilo]

My mother was watching the racing from Cheltenham. I heard a kerfuffle, went to see what was up and caught a couple of replays of an incident in which a horse got spooked on its way to the starting line and went crashing into the barrier separating the track from the spectators. Splinters flew, the jockey was thrown, the horse lay wallowing on the ground.

Racing is a blood sport. If the jockey club were a bunch of unwashed peasants keeping ponies in a back field the RSPCA would have had them all in prison ages ago.

Ruby Walsh, the jockey, gave an interview a few days back in which he was silly enough to admit that horses are "expendable". This is entirely true but not what the British public wants to hear- and it inundated him with hate mail and death threats.

"At least it's not as sadistic as bullfighting," says Judy. Agreed. But a damn sight more hypocritical.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

It's not so much the actual racing that I object to, though that does have its risks, but it results in a lot of over-breeding and the surplus horses that don't make it in racing are not really suitable as all purpose horses for riding club members. The horses are just a commodity and are regarded as disposable if they don't make the grade.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes. Race horses are too delicate- too fragile and highly strung- to make good hacks. Or so I'm told.