>I believe, wholeheartedly, that "man" should not race horses before they are >at least 4 years old. A horse is not fully developed until the age of 4 or >5.
I totally agree. This is one reason we do tend to see more injuries in racing than other equine sports where they are not competing at such an early age. >I personally treated my horses like gold. They were better taken care of >than I was. I took care of stables full of high class, high bred stakes >horses cost $250,000+ and I took care of and raced $5,000 claimers. To me, >they all got the same care, no matter how much they were worth or how much >money they made. And there definitely are many owners like that, who are in it not for the money so much as the love of the sport and the animal. It's really not that much different than breeding dogs, or many other activities with animals that come down to money...the best breeders are those that are not in it to make money (although typically they do, just because of the care they put into it) while those that solely care about making money are the ones running puppy mills and treating their animals very poorly. >That is not the case for some stables though. I saw people around me that >took short cuts, shot horses full of pain meds, blocked hooves, administered >"milk shakes", etc. I don't believe it is a majority, and state regulations >make it very hard these days to cheat the system, but on class c racetracks >and where people are trying to put food on their table week after week, you >see a lot more corners being cut. Yup, very much the kind of thing I saw regularly. >As for being born to run? I took care of horses who got so excited, ears up, >tail waving, nickering, prancing, ready to get on the track and go. Yup, that's the drive to run and win against any challenge that the great horses have but can be a two-edged sword when it comes to animals hurting themselves. It's just the nature of the game when it comes to breeding animals that will have that strong drive and desire to win, that is necessary in a great racer. >Otherwise, it's like any other activity/sport. It's great when everyone is >happy. Bad when there's a bad apple. I guess the objection with racing though is that it is an innocent animal that gets harmed as a result. So it does become a question of if the price is too high, since it's unlikely you can ever completely get rid of the "bad apples". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;192386516;25150098;k Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:259842 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
