For Animal Lovers Everywhere

[Hops]

I'm still opinionating...(wish I could get a salary for it!). Wanted to share a letter I put on Salon.com -- response to article called: They Shoot Racehorses, Don't They? Thanks for indulging me. --Hops
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Anorexics Perched on Conscripted Animals Do Not a "Sport" Make

It's funny. Once something exists we feel compelled to perpetuate it, rationalize it, and find the "beauty" in it. New knowledge? Empathic epiphanies? Naw, stay the course. Why should a mindset evolve, anyway?

I don't care if racing's been around forever, so have bullfighting, cock fighting, fox hunting, dog fighting, pig wrestling, and bear baiting. A few of these have embarrassed communities enough to be outlawed. Several used to be the province of po' folks.

But horse racing is an industry with an elegant gloss (people sometimes wear exceptional hats). Some horses love to run. Great. Take one out in a field and let him/her go for it. Responsible riders would never use a whip to make a horse strain to the upper limit of its endurance for their own entertainment.

We watch magnificent horses on racetracks run until their eyes bulge, but we must be glancing at our stopwatches while they're being whipped. (Don't bother with the they-don't-feel-it-because-of-adrenalin story. Maybe so. It's still ugly. Ugly HUMAN stuff.) Love the euphemisms, too: "applying the crop." "Collateral damage."

Reminds me of what people say about logging the Pacific Northwest. Just for one. "We can't change THAT. Loggers would lose their JOBS!"

Yes, they would. But it's the deep-pocketed soulless ones, sort of like Cheney and the oil barons, who don't bother to affirm that they could certainly start up new industries in the same locations to re-employ loggers. Of course they could. They might not walk off with as many millions, of course. Hence...horse racing. Lexington, KY. The money involved. The gambling. The stud fees. Yup, horses who've made their owners millions get nice pastures and oats and all, after they've been fucked silly for their expensive sperm.

And do racehorse owners love their horses? Sure! And what does that prove about their depth of thought? Hitler loved his German Shepherds.

Horse racing is thrilling to watch, in a blood-lust sort of way. The whipping and extremis and risk of collision...all part of the appeal.

Like boxing. Like ... well, like war. Great video game, that.

Cruelty is all of a piece. Anybody could chart it. How do we treat/respect animals = how do we treat/respect each other.

Horse racing is as barbaric as boxing, but we don't care. Just ask the exhausted grayhound down the street. He's quiet, gentle. But he has flat, dead eyes when he looks at human beings. No expectation whatsoever.

-- I Watched Ruffian and That Was That

[penelope]

...this reminds me of the little doggie that used to live next door to us, Whiskey.  My neighbors adopted him after he'd been homeless for a few years (their other doggie was also adopted as a puppy, after they saw it flying out of somebody's window ahead of them at 80mph on the freeway)...he will Never ever leave the couch, unless prodded.  Other doggies can be running around the backyard, taunting each other, barking and yapping and playing games, squeaking squeakies and tugging ropes attached to humans - basically creating a ruckus, and having fun with same humans.  But whiskey's butt is glued to his cushion.  He used to look at me with those expectation-less eyes you've described hops.

Thanks for sharing.

pb

[Hopalong]

Thanks, PB, I was fishing as usual...but I APOLOGIZE EVERYBODY!

I completely did not recall that I had put the F-word in there, I had meant to use a euphemism, but worked  myself into quite a lather (no pun intended)...and I can't retrieve the letter and fix it. (Either on Salon or here, since I wasn't logged in).

I think about the "custom" of pulling a little screen around a broken-legged racehorse to euthanize it on the track, makes my brain boil. I think people might just need to WATCH what happens to horses in that "sport".

Oh heist on me own petard (wither)...(I mean, no pun int...I give up).

My aplogies...I don't usually say that unless I'm by myself and stub my toe really really hard.



Hops

[Stormchild]

Hops, I'm glad to find out you sometimes use the same kind of language I sometimes do. .

I'm also glad to see that you, like me, occasionally slip up here and let this stuff out of its cage. And then want to crate it right back up again.

One **relieved** and also entirely human Stormy .

[ANewSheriff]

Hops:

How do we treat/respect animals = how do we treat/respect each other.

We are big time animal lovers here in this house.  This is a tough issue for me.  We have relatives in the horse business.  I have always had difficulty with anything that exploited animals for profit - circuses, racing, rodeos, etc.  Just a personal thing for me.  Animals have no choice. 

penelope:

But whiskey's butt is glued to his cushion.

I was never thrown out of a car window (although I am quite sure there would be a line of individuals who would volunteer to do it from time to time), but I do find that as with Whiskey I am quite often on the couch too much. 

Hops: 

I completely did not recall that I had put the F-word in there, I had meant to use a euphemism, but worked  myself into quite a lather (no pun intended)...and I can't retrieve the letter and fix it. (Either on Salon or here, since I wasn't logged in).

It worked for this piece.  No offense here. 

ANS

[Bones]

And I keep looking at what happened to Barbaro recently.  Sad.

Bones

[Hopalong]

That's right, Bones. The article on Salon.com today was about him, among other things.
You might enjoy reading it, and the letters too.

I just stopped with Ruffian because I was living in Baltimore when it happened...watching it live.

Hops

[Bones]

That's right, Bones. The article on Salon.com today was about him, among other things.
You might enjoy reading it, and the letters too.

I just stopped with Ruffian because I was living in Baltimore when it happened...watching it live.

Hops

Thanks, Hops.  I'll check it out.

Bones