Why are injured racehorses euthanized?

Question

Why are injured racehorses euthanized?

Answer 1

Because they are in pain and there really Isn't anything else the vet can do the help the horse so they must end its suffering by putting it to sleep..

Answer 2

In the case of Eight Belles, she was euthanized because she broke both of her ankles.  If she could have been saved she would have been, but generally a horse with two broken ankles has no chance of recovery because unlike you or me, a horse will not and can not stay off its feet for the months and months it will take to heal.

Answer 3

because an injury such as a broken leg will never heal

race horses are very delicat,high powered running machines..they are bred for the race and power,and when an injury occurs,, its always pretty severe

if the horse wasnt euthanised,, it would be in pain the rest of its life and stand a good chance of developing infection which would kill it in the long run

I kow its a very sad thing to think about,,but if you understand what they are bred for and the inside scopes of horse injuries and how they actually affect the horse, then you can begin to understand

Answer 4

Too minimize suffering...if it comes to that they are injured beyond the point of recovery.

Answer 5

There is no way for the horse to support his or her own weight. That is the only way. Sorry, but it happens all the time in the industry. If there was any other way, don't you think they would do everything they could. Look at all the money they lost in future profits. what would be cruel ,is to let the horse go on suffering. If it hadn't of been the KY Derby, then nobody would have known the difference.

Answer 6

Many people who don't ride do not understand. A horse breaking a leg is much more severe than a human breaking it's leg. Since you need to keep the horse from moving during recovery, A lot of health problems can occur. For instance obesity which can lead to arthritis and also put even more stress on the horses leg. And the less excercise a horse gets the more likely it will be that they will get colic(serious illness in horses). Not to mention if a horse lays down for more than 24 hours it could suffocate because of it's weight. It's really complicated.

Answer 7

Horses, for all their size and power, are surprisingly delicate. When they break, they tend to break catastrophically - They're highly optimized running machines, and if they sustain a major leg injury, multiple interacting problems occur - Interruption of blood flow to the injured leg, preventing natural healing; interrupted blood flow preventing anti-bodies and antibiotics from reaching infection sites; loss of mobility causing colic and fatal constipation; excess weight transferred to the sound legs causing laminitis (almost always fatal even in horses with four sound legs); the list of complicating conditions goes on and on.

A sound horse is a thing of beauty. A crippled horse is a ball of painful, moribund misery. The kindest thing to do is to put them down quickly and painlessly.