Here she is, having just won her owners a whopping $400,000. About 3 seconds after this photo was taken, both her front ankles snapped, crumbled like leaves in October, and down she went onto the hallowed ground of America’s most time-honored and accepted form of animal abuse…. horse racing and The Kentucky Derby.
One day go visit a Thoroughbred Rescue Farm where hundreds of former race horses go (if they are LUCKY!!) when their owners, bored and mad that their “investment” isn’t paying off, dump them. You will never meet a more nutso horse than one who’s come off the track. It takes YEARS to rehabilitate their minds, and rarely ever can you truly rehabilitate their bodies. These babes are raced at such tender young ages (go hang out with a pen filled with two or three year olds…. they are still growing, they frolick, they play…. except for those who are bred to run run run run run. And get beaten by their jockey with a whip while they’re doing it.) they are running on bones that are not strong, full-grown and healthy. It’s a miracle there aren’t more breakdowns like Ruffian, Barbaro and now, Eight Belles.
It’s stories like these that make me sick to my stomach. Horse racing is just plain animal cruelty for enrichment of owners’ bank accounts and to feed the addiction of gamblers.
Boycott horseracing.
