Is horse racing creulty to animals? Not that I AM SAYING IT IS or that im NOT just asking what YOU think?

Question

To the guy who said NOT AT ALL

Please ELABORATE so they dont ALL think you are just saying it without any VALID REASON.........so please EXPLAIN WHY you DONT think it is CREUL ..........I want BALANCED Opinions here PLEASE help your POSITION if you CAN

Answer 1

no elalborate answer needed...its the pressure put on thr trainers to win. racing horses without proper rest between races is the cause for break downs.

Answer 2

they do love winning you have great traniers that love their horses but it can be cruel to depends on the owners jockey barn trainers . i seen horses win that trot like they know it all its cute i love them so to see them mistresed upsets me/

Answer 3

it can be in certain situations. heres the thing:

-they LIKE to run. horses can tell the jockey when they dont want to, or when they know something is wrong, but its up to the jockey to decide what to do. Example is Big Brown and his trainer.

-belive it or not, the sport IS getting safer and fairer. new laws and regulations are being put in every year, and a big one thats coming is making steroids illegal for the horses.

-the horses are not treated badly. these are million dollar horses, its not like they are abused. most of the horses live better than we do! once they are retired, many go off and live relaxing lives on their farm.

-the problem nowadays is people who know nothing about horses and are subjected to hearing all of this c**p about how the horses are "whipped to death" and other completely untrue statements. PETA of course has field days shoving all of this propaganda into our faces, and most of the time naiive people or people who know nothing about horse racing fall for it.

-now im not saying that im an expert on horses, because im not. however, im pretty confident in saying that i know more about them than the average person.

-the problem with the sport is that unfortunately there is some corruption in it. most of the problems lie with the trainers and owners. many trainers give the horses illegal substances, or too much of a legal substance. (thankfully nick dutrow has been suspended!!!). there are new law proposals coming, thankfully, that are meant to make steriods illegal, and new laws are being made to tighten the regulation on the sport.

Yes, in some situations the sport can be mean, but its the trainers and owners fault for being stupid and careless. they are willing to cross the line just to make a few bucks.

******what people need to do is not make the sport itself illegal, but help to change it. tightening the regulation is the biggest step, because it will keep the horses safer and keep the trainers and owners from making illegal moves.

the biggest concern will always be the safety of the horses, and helping to promote and support the new laws will undoubtedly make huge improvements.

as to what the first person stated, they do NOT get killed if they win the first two legs of the triple crown. it is seen as an enourmous honor to win those two, even if they did not capture the triple crown. they will retire to stud where they will live a relaxing life. Affirmed was the last winner of the triple crown. since then, there have been 11 horses that have won the first two. NONE of them have been killed.

-about the whipping thing: horses have very thick skin, especially on their hindquarters (where they are whipped), and what it feels like to them feels nothing at all like it would feel to us.

Answer 4

Racing in its present form IS CRUEL in a lot of ways- but that doesn't mean I think it should be banned. What needs to happen is that the sport needs to be CHANGED and made safer and more humane for EVERYONE INVOLVED, horses and people alike. There are numerous ways to make this happen without banning the sport outright- but right now, no one is listening to those of us who want badly to inject some common sense into this sport.

I am not a PETA member, nor do I support them- in fact, I consider that organization to be one of the most hypocritical groups in existance. Most of PETA'S members are totally uneducated people who react in a knee jerk way to anything that organization puts out, regardless of whether or not it's true or has any basis in reality. But with that said, I will go on to give you a few of my own ideas about how to improve the sport of horse racing ( which I love, incidentally, don't ever think I don't) and make it safer and more humane.

First of all, there are some things which need to be said about racing as a whole- one of which is that this is a MULTI BILLION dollar industry, one that employs MILLIONS of people on a national and global scale. Racing's reach extends FAR beyond the racetrack or the breeding shed. Think of all the millions of people in different professions who either make their living off the sport, or are involved in professions which contribute to it in one way or another. It's not just about the trainers, owners, breeders, and jockeys. It's also about the farm managers, the grooms, the foaling attendants who work with the mares every spring, the stallion managers, all the people who do the marketing and advertising on the farms and at the tracks, the vets, the farriers, the people who run the feed stores, the feed and equipment manufacturers and companies, the people who repair equipment used on the farms and at the tracks, the tractor manufacturers, the airplane pilots who fly horses from track to track, the flight crews which support them, the air traffic controllers who keep everyone safe in the air and prevent collisions, and on and on and on !!!  All of these people have an impact on racing's existance- they are like spokes in a giant wheel. If you remove too many of the spokes, the wheel is going to become unbalanced and will not turn correctly. And if you damage the frame ( in this case, by banning the sport of racing) then you will create chaos, because all of a sudden, these millions of people will have no way to make a living for themselves and their families. This is what groups like PETA do not understand- and why their calls to ban the sport are going to get ignored, for the most part. There is just too much at stake, and too many lives are impacted, for that to ever happen.

Right now, the economics and culture of the racing industry don't make much sense, either to me, or to most people I know. Consider this: It can often cost the owners and breeders of today's racehorses upwards of a MILLION or more dollars just to breed and raise a foal- indeed, there are currently some stallions whose fees are upwards of 500,000K to 750,000K per MARE, and THAT'S JUST THE STUD FEE ALONE- never mind all the numerous costs associated with supporting the mare until she gives birth, and raising the foal once it's born. The much venerated but now pensioned off stallion Storm Cat was one of these animals- at the height of his breeding career, his fee was a half million dollars a pop, per mare. When owners and breeders must spend this kind of money, before a foal is even on the ground, they obviously must have a way to recoup some of that expense as soon as possible- and right now, this means that young thoroughbred racehorses get started in training under saddle at the age of 15 to 18 months, so they can race and start earning back the costs involved in producing them as 2 year olds. If this were not the case, there would be no way these owners and breeders could stay in business themselves and turn a profit, much less provide jobs and income for the employees who work for them.

But this enormous pressure to get these babies racing as soon as possible has a lot of drawbacks, as everyone who follows the sport has seen in recent years. It has led to numerous tragedies, most of which were completely preventable. It has also led to a sharp decline in racing's popularity, as other, less bloodthirsty forms of gambling and entertainment have emerged. But because of the enormous costs involved in producing the horses, breeders and owners are very reluctant to change the system- because that would require them to fundamentally alter the way in which they operate and do business. This is why there has been no effort to raise the minimum age for racing to at least 4- it's just too expensive right now, and it would also require that the whole culture under which the sport operates be changed. It's almost as if the powers that be which run racing would rather put up with and endure the constant barrage of negative publicity and the huge public outrage over tragedies like Eight Belles' death, then make any effort to change or improve the sport for the better.

The simple fact of the matter is that these horses are BABIES- young, immature horses whose bones are still soft and growing, and which can't take the stress of training and racing without dire consequences in a lot of cases. Simply raising the racing age would SAVE A LOT of these babies' lives, and give them a chance to grow up and become strong before they raced- and it would reduce the number of tragedies on the tracks, and perhaps even eliminate some of them entirely. But as long as there is so much pressure to recoup "investments" in these young horses by racing them at two years of age, NOTHING is going to change. That's sad, but it's reality.

Raising the racing age would do more than save horses' lives and give them a chance to grow up. It would also help to reduce the incentive which owners and breeders currently have to overbreed and produce too many horses, because selling them as yearlings would no longer be profitable. That in turn would mean less inbreeding, and wiser choices in the breeding shed, because breeders would be forced to think about the long term, rather than just trying to make a quick buck in a couple years. It would also mean a reduction in the number of seriously inbred horses which the industry is producing- horses like Eight Belles, who only had a limited number of races in her to start with. All of this in turn would have the impact of eliminating most if not all of the catstrophic accidents and breakdowns which have dogged the sport like the Black Death for the last few years. But try telling any of this to the people at the top of the sport of racing now, and your words are going to fall on deaf ears.

This is just my thinking- and others are free to differ. I don't pretend to be all knowing, but I know one thing- racing as a whole CAN'T CONTINUE this way much longer. Sooner or later, there is going to be the equivalent of a 9/11 style accident on one or more of our country's tracks, one in which not just horses, but PEOPLE, DIE. When that happens, and I know in my heart that it's coming, there will be an outcry that is so large that NO ONE will be able to ignore it. It's at that point that I would expect the federal government to step in, and possibly either regulate or ban racing outright. When that happens, we ALL will lose.

Think about it.

Answer 5

I think it is.....the poor horse might not be feeling too good or have health problems but they will make it race anyways just to try and make money.  I also think it is sad that if they win the double crown but fail to get the triple, they get killed.

Answer 6

I believe it is. It's not the racing part, it's the getting whipped harder and harder...it is inhumane.

Answer 7

No its not because the horse cant ne physically forced to run its their choice in the end not the jockey or any one else

Answer 8

not at all........ I simply have not seen any evidence to make me think otherwise.

Answer 9

It is a cruel sport because they start racing them when they are two years old and they are still growing their bones and they stop growing about four or five years old. They should never be run at a young age that can lead to back problems like sway back. IT does not matter how small you say the jockey is you still are putting pressure on their backs. That is like making a child carrying a hippo on his back that hurts and the child would be hurt and so would the horse.

       OH and to the person who said that horses have thick skin they do not have thick skin and they have very sentitive ticklish spots on their body. Like their sides are ticklish to anything that touchs them and if you hit them there they react violently like you would sometimes to someone touching you in any spot that you know is very ticklish to you. their bellies are ticklish to and it is not thick like you say. When you whip them on the rump that gets a reaction out of them and IF you say their skin is that thick and they cant feel it then how does the whip affect them that badly or cause them to be sore or cut there. Horses have about thick skin as US or any animal for that matter. So whips should be done away with really you show more horsemanship without whips or spurs cause really you are communicationing your butt and legs. They can feel the slightest movement on the reins and know what the rider wants them to do next.

            Yes some horses have been in line to go to slaughter not all but some have because the owner and trainer have money in their eyes and want the horse to be everything like their parents.Not every horse is going to like running even if their family has done it for ever and they are related to the greatest horse in the sport. I am not saying that all horses dont like to run but some may not like running. TAKE for example your father and mother were great runners and your brother and sisters before you were great and then they all look up to you and want you to be a runner to and you have dreams of being something else hey maybe thats how they feel to.

             I think that the racing industry should just make a few changes like races the horses when they are four or five years old and dont use whip or spurs and then the horses wont look so dainty but big and stong and this might stop all those breaks downs and injuries because they are older and adult and be able to handle the stress from the sport and maybe peta will go away then since less injury will happen because of these changes.