Gabriel Saez...a murderer?

Question

PETA wants Gabriel Saez (the jockey of Eight Belles) to be suspended. They also want Larry Jones (E.B.'s trainer) to be barred from training racehorses. Which is just plain ridiculous. PETA says that Saez mercilessly whipped Eight Belles as she was coming down the final stretch, and that she was in agony from two legs that were about to break.

I would like to say that I fully have Saez's back. He's just a kid (19). His first derby. His first breakdown. He loved that horse. No way in h**l would he race that horse knowing she was hurt. It disgusts me how PETA feels they have the right to attack everyone. They've attacked organizations for pediatric cancer care, breast cancer organizations, and AIDS charities. While they have a right to express their views, they do not have a right to try to take down people's careers without at least adequate claims and research. Why can't they accept that is was just a freak accident?

Answer 1

peta is a revenue raising organization, who know nothing about racing, if they were so concerned about animal cruelty they would try to stop the Japanese whaling in the southern ocean

Answer 2

PETA has always been over active in their point o view on all things with animals.  I agree with the the writer of the question.  Gabriel Saez was only doing his job.  Larry Jones was also doing his job.  The Jockey would have know if the horse was in agony.  He would have felt it.  The whole thing was just a terrible accident.

Answer 3

Peta is crazy.If you rewatch the race,"Eight Belles" had no injury until after the finish line. I suggest Peta go to China and stop them from killing all the cats.

Answer 4

So what's your question? I have never believed any of PETA'S garbage for a moment, and neither should you- and incidentally, their calls to suspend or bar either Jones or Saez from racing have gone largely unheard. Most people know perfectly well that PETA is just spinning their wheels and blowing hot air. They are also calling for the whole sport of racing to be banned, and THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN, no matter what they say. This is more than a sport- it's a MULTI-BILLION dollar industry which employs MILLIONS of people, both nationally in the US, and around the world. Racing generates BILLIONS of dollars in tax revenues each year- and there is just NO WAY in h**l that PETA'S demands are ever going to be listened to. Their attempts to make public scapegoats out of Saez and Jones are going to get them nowhere either, because BOTH of these men have already been exonerated and cleared of all blame by the racing commission in Kentucky.

What happened to Eight Belles WAS a tragedy, yes, but it was NOT THE FAULT of any particular person- and Saez did nothing wrong. If I were to place the blame for the filly's death somewhere, it would be on the ENTIRE SYSTEM which produced her and demanded that she race at such a young age, when her bones clearly couldn't take the stress of such treatment. That, combined with the fact that she was so inbred ( she has been rightly described by some of the experts who testified in Congress a week or so ago as a " genetic disaster waiting to happen") was what led to her death, not any action of Saez's or on Jones's part. What's happening to both these two men reminds me a lot of what Ruffian's trainer, Frank Whiteley, went through after SHE died a similar horrific death over 30 years ago. People blamed him for the filly's breakdown and death then, just as they are doing now with these two, and it wasn't HIS fault EITHER. In fact, the blame was so severe that Whiteley's career suffered grieviously because of it- as did the professional careers of every one of her connections. Ruffian's groom actually DIED a couple of years after the filly did- of acute alcoholic poisoning !! It has been said that he drank himself to death because of her- he loved her like she was his own child, and he never got over the loss.

PETA wasn't around at that time- but if they had been, you can bet that their reaction to that tragedy would have been just as bad as it is to the one involving Eight Belles. As for why they can't accept that this an accident, you need to understand who PETA's members are- most of them are ignorant, foolish people who will believe whatever is said to them, regardless of whether or not it's true, and react in a knee-jerk way to anything which happens that they don't like. Horse racing isn't the only industry which has to deal with these @ssholes- there are other horse sports, as well as other types of professions involving animals, which face problems from them too. The situation is made worse by the fact that PETA operates hand in hand with HSUS- the two groups share many of the same principles, and it's not uncommon to find employees working for HSUS who began their careers by working for PETA, and vice versa. As long as we have celebrities who think they can enhance their careers and image by being active with and supporting PETA, and there are ignorant people around who believe what these idiots say, then the racing and sport horse worlds are going to have problems with groups like this. The US is not the only country in the world with a group like PETA, either- PETA'S British counterpart is the Animal Liberation Front, or ALF for short, and they have made life pretty hellish over there as well for people involved in horse sports. The ALF was one of the groups behind the ban on foxhunting in the UK- a ban which is now in the process of being repealed because it has proven to be totally unenforceable over there. What Tony Blair and his government didn't want to admit to anyone was that there is a HUGE segment of the British economy which depends on hunting and horse related sports, and trying to ban hunting there would have been tantamount to banning baseball or football here in the US- it JUST WOULDN'T WORK !!!

Now that there has finally been a regime change over in Britain, the hunting ban is on its way out- and things will eventally get back to normal for the British people. They will once again be able to enjoy their national past time, much as we enjoy baseball and football here.

Will groups like PETA ever disappear? One can hope, but it's a long shot at best. PETA'S members mean well, and most of them have good intentions- but there's an old saying about good intentions which PETA needs to listen to and be reminded of. The road to h**l is often paved with them.

Enough said.