Posted By:
E, DanielIf race horses love the glory, love to race, love the attention, lets make it the real deal....
Horses line up, no gear on them, no jockey, the gates open, and the first one that chooses to run around the track twice and finish in front at the post - all in search of attention glory and the sheer love of racing - gets a nice crystal dish it can display in it's stall....which of course it chooses to return to every night after spending the day grazing un-fenced in the greater pastures.
My money's on the more likely result: Some horses going one way, some the other, some necking, some screwing, lots of grazing, and not one of them 'choosing' to race for any of the said motivations. I'd like to see the greatest horsetrainer/whisperer in the world sell the idea of racing to a horse in search of these obviously human and un-horse like traits. Horses don't have an inbuilt drive to 'chase' and bring down prey, which is what greyhounds are responding to when they run after the lure. They're not in it for any of these aforementioned humanistic desires arbitrarily given them to justify the weirdness of it all. Which of course is simply to allow us to compete in yet another arena because we've exhausted the human arenas or our imagination.
Oh, and if by chance you think racing a great industry for the horses themselves because every now and then the public can get excited about one 'Superhorse', tell that to every broken down horse that didn't know the stakes - being sold off if it's super lucky as a pony for a rich kid, if it's kinda lucky as a polo horse to a rich stiff who doesn't beat it for not performing, or if it's as usual - finding its way inside your can of dog food. I'd love to see the statistics on how many horses get to live out their lives and die of natural circumstances - not junked because they didn't make the grade or couldn't be afforded any longer by a fickle family, but I guarantee they would horrify the most casual and un-informed followers of horse racing, which most on this forum are.
The whole thing is sick.