Ostrich Racing: Sport or Animal Cruelty
Ostriches are fascinating birds. They are the largest flightless birds on the planet and also happen to lay the largest egg of any bird. Over time ostriches were bred in captivity and people tried to domesticate them. The problem with this was that the large
bird is not easily trained and domesticated. People even started to ride them and this gave way to racing with them and soon a new sport was born. This is interesting because even though it is possible to ride an ostrich it is very difficult to do. While some
have said that racing ostriches is a legitimate sport such as horse racing and grey hound racing, others condemn the sport as animal cruelty. This interesting sport looks like it will not be around much longer as animal rights groups come down hard on it.
Ostriches as a species have been around since ancient times but people have been trying to domesticate the large bird only fairly recently. People have been racing the bird for a long time. This is possible because a fully grown adult bird grows to a height
of 9 feet and is large enough for a small person to sit on its back, hold onto its wings and ride it. The practice of riding and racing these birds was common in Africa and is still a practice that can be seen around the world but it was introduced in America
for the first time in the late 1800s. In 1892 an ostrich farm opened up as a tourist attraction. It was aptly named ‘The Ostrich Farm’ and it opened up in Jacksonville, Florida where one of the main attractions was watching ostriches being ridden by people
around the farm. Over time this led to the birds being raced against each other with a human riding on top of them. People were fascinated by this huge flightless bird that was able to run very fast even while carrying someone on top of it. The races became
more popular and spread all over the country. Today the sport is in decline as more and more animal rights groups put pressure on ostrich farms to stop these races from taking place.
The ostrich is a very strange and interesting bird. Even though it is unable to fly, an ostrich can run at a speed of 45 miles per hour for a period of 30 minutes at a time. This makes them an ideal animal to race because of the fact that they are so fast.
Over the years to assist a rider in staying on the bird’s backs, special saddles and bits were developed especially for the sport. What makes this type of racing so interesting and exciting, is the fact that it is a lot harder to ride an ostrich than a horse
or a camel. Ostriches are known for their erratic behaviour and are difficult to force to travel in a straight line. It is also difficult to sit on the bird because of its odd shape and this makes riding and racing an uncomfortable experience. Today in Arizona,
there is a very popular ‘Ostrich Festival’ that takes place every year, during which people can race ostriches.
A lot of animal rights activists have come forward to condemn the sport as animal cruelty. These large birds are not meant to be ridden and are wild creatures even though they have been bred in farms for many years now. The ostrich is a very shy creature
and is frightened easily. The birds also resist being saddled and have to be hooded before a race begins. The poor creatures are forced to race simply for the pleasure of humans. Over the years a lot of cruelty has befallen these poor birds; first they were
hunted to almost extinction for their feathers, then their meat became very popular and they were bred in farms, and now they are forced to endure having a saddle strapped to their back and being raced around.
Even though the sport of ostrich racing still takes place in many places around the world, it does not look like it will become very popular in the future. Animal rights groups will come down hard on the sport and like a lot of other cruel practices that
are in decline all around the world such as bullfighting, we may only be able to see ostrich racing in the history books in a few years time.
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