Run For Your Life...

From Jim: We have about a dozen off-the-track race horses at the sanctuary. They're thoroughbreds and standardbreds. Most were on the way to slaughter when we got them. Most have been injured from their track experiences. All of them are great horses. Some won alot of money and then were thrown away. Some got injured early on and were thrown away. Some were sent off to be brood mares and when they got older, were thrown away. The racing industry contributes exactly zero dollars to the care of these animals-ZERO. They don't set aside anything for the lifetime care of these "atheletes". They would have us believe that the colts and fillys that are run way too early in life signed on and wanted a racing career. Talk about anthropormorphism. Horses do their best to do what we ask of them. It's on us! They could just as well have done dressage or ranch work or been pleasure horses. Sea Bisket spend the last years of his life working cattle. The owners are about winning, gambling, and breeding. The horse is a necessary, but expendable requirement to racing/gambling. Take the paramutuel betting out of the racing industry and see how many true sportsmen you'll have left. The hats at the Kentucky Derby get more airtime than the fate of the horses that don't win. Every once in awhile, the lack of the emperor's clothes is obvious. A favorite suffers a catastrophic injury. Oh, the humanity. The fact that these injuries occur all over the country, often, is just not polite to talk about. Spoils the mood. When I pet Chance, our colt that broke his knee in his 4th race and was in the KB pen at the auction, because "he didn't show an apptitude for racing"-Yep that was written on his papers, it crosses my eyes. Chance is one of the sweetest colts you'd ever want to meet. He'll deal with a lifetime injury because the racing folks won't let these horses grow up. They race babies. Barbaro and Eight Bells got the headlines. What about all the others?