Thoughts on what it means to be human in today’s world
May 6, 2008 at 8:55 am
· Filed under Humanity, Science and tagged: Ethics, Science
It was a sad day for the Kentucky Derby when they had to put down the second place horse, Eight Belles, on the track after the filly broke both front ankles after the race. Some people are stunned, others are angry. We can argue about whether horse racing is a good or bad sport, whether it abuses animals, whether it is elitist, etc., but Eight Belles’ story is not about racing, its about bad breeding.
A “good” race horse is one that is fast, but fast comes with consequences. Horses are naturally adapted to evading predators based on speed — they can outrun whatever wants to eat them. Horse breeders try to capitalize on this speed by breeding fast horses with other fast horses, past winners with other past winners. Speed, though, is not a gene that can be turned on or off or turned up or down. Speed is achieved through a variety of cost/benefit analyses in the body. Faster animals have lighter weight skeletons, longer legs, bigger lungs. How do you get a faster horse? By sacrificing something else. In general, the easiest way to make something faster is to lighten the weight of the skeleton, but if you do this you walk a fine line between bone that can take the stress of running and bone that can’t.
PETA wants to roast the poor jockey of Eight Belles, but the SPCA comes closer to the truth of the issue. As reported by the AP (emphasis added by me):
The Humane Society of the United States also weighed in today, arguing that horses are becoming more fragile because they’re being bred for speed, not durability.
“There are problems coming to light more than ever — problems related to breeding,” said Wayne Pacelle, Humane Society president. “Breeding too many horses, and waiting for someone else to clean up the problem. And breeding them for body characteristics that make these animals vulnerable to breakdowns, especially those spindly legs on top of these stout torsos.”
Dr. Larry Bramlage, the on-call veterinarian at Churchill Downs during the Derby, acknowledged there was merit to that argument. He suggested there should be more financial incentives for horses who display longevity, rather than just the ability to come up big in one huge race.
“The value of a horse is no longer related to how much he can win on the racetrack,” Bramlage said. “It’s related to how likely he can get you to one of those events. The breed creeps toward a faster and faster individual, but that individual may be brilliant because they have a lighter skeleton. We’re inadvertently selecting for the wrong thing.”
This is the ultimate problem with ALL sports — we select for the wrong things. In horse racing the price is too often death if the bones are bred so brittle as to snap at the first big race. A horse can’t live if it can’t stand. If humans break down, they get a wheelchair for life, or a hospital bed eating out of a tube. Some human athletes die because of steroid damage or are left with severe medical problems or can’t have kids. PETA is up in arms about horse racing, but why isn’t there any outrage over what we pay athletes to do to themselves in the name of speed or home run records? Let’s face it, kids are bred for sports too — maybe not so much their genes, but their muscles and minds are bred by drugs, questionable nutritional supplements, inappropriate training schedules, and the lure of money.
Eight Belles is a lesson not just for racing, where more effort needs to be given to fixing the problems of breeding, but also for human athletes. Bodies are designed to do certain things and do them well, but if you push too much the body breaks down. There are no winners when that happens, only losers.
News Reference: “Eight Belles’ trainer defends jockey” from the Associated Press, May 6, 2008 as published in the LA Times online edition.
Permalink
Liz wrote @ May 6, 2008 at 1:25 pm
The horse racing industry advertises itself as “glamorous,” but in reality, exploitation, welfare violations, cruelty, and premature deaths are an inherent and unavoidable part of this industry based on greed.
FACTS:
The horse racing industry causes thousands of horses to be born only to be slaughtered or abandoned to an existence of neglect, starvation, and suffering. There are three reasons for this:
Very large numbers must be produced annually to generate a few fast ones to be selected to compete. Of the many thousands bred to race, very few make the grade. The rest must be disposed of.
During training or racing, injuries are common. Injured horses are also euthanized or sold from one owner to another into increasingly worse conditions.
When race horses have finished their career - usually at a very early age, before they are fully mature - they, too, must be disposed of. Their numbers exceed by far the number of humane retirement facilities.
The above has been found to be true of every country where this issue has been studied, including England, Germany, Japan, and the U.S. In the small country of Macau, for example, approximately 300 horses are imported per year, the same number as are retired. Most of those retired are euthanized. Some who do not make the grade, but who can still race, are exported to race and/or to an unknown fate in China or Vietnam. A local Macau newspaper published photos of healthy horses (some as young as 4 years old) who were no longer fast enough to win races, being lined up and shot, their bodies dumped at a local landfill. The horses were shot because shooting is a cheaper, though much less humane method of euthanasia than lethal injection.
In the U.S., around 5,000 leave racing every year, the same number who enter it. As in Macau and in every other country where horse racing exists, many end up euthanized or sent into a downward spiral of abuse.
Race horses frequently suffer injuries because they are forced to train and race before their skeletal system has finished growing.
To compete in the races with the largest purses — which are for 2 and 3 year olds — horses must be trained and raced at too young an age, before their bones’ growth plates have matured. This causes many lower-limb ailments and injuries, including fractures, pulled ligaments, and strained tendons. Such injuries are common in horse racing.
Riding horses are started at 3-4 years old, while race horses are often started as young as 1.5 years. Riding horses are brought along slowly and with as little stress to their still-maturing joints as possible, while race horses are forced to run beyond their limits, pounding their still-developing joints into the ground. When the riding horse is just entering his prime, the race horse is ending his career, and possibly his life.
One study showed that for every 22 races, at least one horse suffers an injury severe enough to prevent him or her from finishing a race. Another study estimated that 800 Thoroughbreds die from racing-related injuries every year in North America. Most owners are not willing to pay high veterinary fees for an injured horse who is unlikely to ever race again, and instead, choose to euthanize the animal.
Read more at:
http://www.chai-online.org/en/compassion/entertainment_racing.htm
Given the above, yes, the argument is there that horse racing perhaps deserves to cease to be a sport, but it also highlights the problems of breeding as it relates to the “puppy-mill” phenomenon. Too many horses bred, only a few taken, just like with pets and most other animals. You could also substitute “human” for “horse” and send an even more powerful message. How many kids are “raised” believing they will be a pro-athlete only to fail, break down, or be washed up by age 30? Greed seems to be a factor in everything we label sport and I certainly don’t have any answers for getting rid of that greed. Thanks for the above post.
HTML-Tags:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
eammasuoka
