Horse Racing: Dying to Amuse You
Kevin
to light cats on fire and blow up mail boxes), come on out to Arlington
Park, have a picnic, have a cocktail and watch a gorgeous, 1,300-pound
animal die!
If you're lucky, you might get to see two horses saddle up with the
Grim Reaper in the same afternoon!
And if you're really lucky -- if your horses come in, so to speak --
you might just get to witness a "tibia trifecta.'' That is, three
ponies busting their legs and heading for the big meat blender in the
sky, all for the price of one admission.
On second thought, you actually have fair odds (about 11-1, for you
wagerers) of seeing that traumatic triple occur, since on June 11 at
Arlington, the horses Nipper Three, Casting Spells and My Girl Erin all
bit the proverbial dust.
And then on June 22, Point of America, Boom City and Apalachee Cat
broke down and went to the Final Pasture.
If that isn't better and creepier voyeurism than what you'll get at
NASCAR, IRL and Ultimate Fighting combined, then Barbaro isn't this
close to being a sandwich.
No offense to that proud animal.
But the shattered-legged Kentucky Derby winner can't read or speak,
which is a huge part of this problem.
Consider that the racing season at Arlington started May 5 and goes
until mid-September, and already 22 thoroughbreds have died: five in
the morning races, 17 in the afternoon.
Insider reports say a number more have been quietly "put away'' after
training or workout accidents.
The thing to remember here is that horses are fleeing herbivores with
delicate balance sensitivity and the inability to lie down for extended
periods, and they basically cannot exist on three legs.
In horse terms: Bust a leg, die.
Last year, there were 12 deaths total at Arlington, our Midwestern
racing jewel.
And the fact that lesser number alone -- a dozen -- doesn't bring us to
our knees is because most of us don't pay any attention to horse racing
until the Derby, Preakness and Belmont and the rare possibility of a
Triple Crown winner.
In house -- that would be behind the charm and PR savvy of racing king
Richard Duchossois, Arlington chairman and largest single shareholder
of Churchill Downs Inc., which owns the track -- this carnage is
brushed away and covered up the way a spilled glass of sherry is at a
mansion cocktail party.
But as Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit, wrote on the
horse-racing Web site Bloodhorse.com: "We speak of catastrophic
breakdowns as if they are blue-moon anamolies. They are anything but.''
According to her calculations, using accepted stats from an industry
that doesn't want you to know anything but the good stuff, Hillenbrand
estimates there are "1.6 fatalities in every 1,000 starts'' in horse
racing. "By this measure, every horse has a one-in-624 chance of dying
in every race.''
Though nobody keeps official tabs, nearly 800 horses died in races last
year.
That's not sport, that's slaughter.
And let's not hide behind the gentleman's euphemisms that pretty up the
gore.
Breakdowns, coming up lame, being euthanized mean tearing your bones
apart, going into shock, being killed.
Imagine, there already have been two races at Arlington in which two
horses died in the same race.
Not a pretty sight
And you want to know how the process goes?
The horse's stalk-like leg shatters because of the track or overuse or
the incredible forces involved -- on June 11, one pony's lower leg
nearly came off completely while aghast parents and children watched
from the picnic area -- and the animal can't understand what has
happened.
Duchossois and his ilk call these injuries fractures.
Those less into sweet talk call them "danglers.''
Men rush out with a large screen to shield the crowd from the
nastiness.
The horse often is "put down'' on the spot -- killed -- with a hefty
I.V. of sodium pentathol.
The horse "ambulance'' then takes the dead beast away, to the other
side of the track and out of sight, and the "horse renderer'' does his
job.
That is, he takes the animal to the slaughterhouse, where it will be
ground up shortly for dog food or, God bless the French, carved up and
sent to that country or Belgium, where they eat such things as
semi-delicacies.
It's kind of surreal when you think that your 4-1 shot named after your
kid sister was just a moment ago coming up the stretch and is now a
whole lot of 8-ounce cans of Mighty Dog.
An allegedly independent inspection of Arlington's dirt surface
reported Tuesday that the track is fine.
"We just don't have an answer [for the deaths] at this time,''
Duchossois said at a news conference.
"We are extremely pleased that the Illinois Racing Board investigation
found that Arlington's racing surface is 'remarkably consistent and
uniform' and that their expert observed that no part of the track is
unsafe,'' Arlington president Roy Arnold crowed in a statement.
Fools.
Don't they get it?
If the track is fine, then the sport itself is sick.
Hey, you PETA activists, you're always spray-painting mink coats and
lying down in front of mosquito abatement trucks.
Somebody buy you off the horse industry?
_________________________________________________
BY RICK TELANDER, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Ronald 'More-More' Moshki
The point of this was to suckerpunch PETA; Telander is a craven of the
lowest order.
rick
"Kevin" <kevp...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1153502223.4...@s13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
snip ignorant spew...
Or, if you REALLY want to kill animals post here on usenet!
It's quaranteed to kill animals! No more wondering if your horse
will get it, this way you KNOW billions upon billions of animals
will die for no more reason than your selfish entertainmnet!
Have at it killers...
Ronald 'More-More' Moshki
Rick Etter---when he returns in next life, no more
Mr. Congeniality.
beach...@gmail.com
Frankly, I couldn't figure out what he was trying to say... just
figured he must be one of them 'thar conservatives whose lips move
without any sense comimg out of 'em.
Ronald 'More-More' Moshki
Rick is consumed with pure hatred for anyone with compassion for
animals;
says such people are "killers" anyway. To an extent he is right
but ARAs keep trying to do some good, however little it may be.
Rick does not care, repeats the same ridicule over and over,
making him sound kinda dumb, which he is not.
rick
<beach...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1153686484.0...@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
Yeah, willful ignorance is part-n-parcel with veganism. Reading
comprehension takes anose dive with a vegan diet too.
It was quite clear, fool. Posting to usenet KILLS animals. Is
that really too much for your 2 braincells to understand?
Yep, thought so...
>
rick
"Ronald 'More-More' Moshki" <secto...@yahoo.com> wrote in
message
news:1153695311.0...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
ROTFLMAO This from the hater of everyone! What a hoot!
> says such people are "killers" anyway. To an extent he is right
> but ARAs keep trying to do some good, however little it may be.
=================================
Very little, fool. That's why you hypocrisy is so apparent and
appalling...
>
> Rick does not care, repeats the same ridicule over and over,
> making him sound kinda dumb, which he is not.
========================
LOL The dunbness is from vegans here. They hear the words but
never let the truth sink in, eh killer?
>
Ronald 'More-More' Moshki
beach...@gmail.com
competition or training during the first week of Del Mar's summer
meeting.
Horses named Esroh and Bonus Pack were injured racing Wednesday and
were killed. Six of the fatal breakdowns occurred in races and one in
training.
At Chicago's Arlington Park, 17 horses have sustained fatal breakdowns
in the first half of the track's four-month racing season. An
independent consultant found no common cause.