Racehorse Racket

Yet another ugly truth about where animals go when they’re done racing  has come out.

The Seattle Times published this feature on the fate of racehorses once they’ve aged out of the sport or are no longer generating money.

Living | Rescue groups save racehorses from slaughterhouses | Seattle Times Newspaper.

The U.S. does not allow the slaughter of horses, but Canada and Mexico do. So American horses are trucked over the border to be killed and sold as dinner to willing European and Japanese diners. American laws have not prevented, and may have little power to enforce, the sale of our horses as food.

This needs to be stopped. It makes my stomach turn that we race animals for profit and then kill or abandon them when they’re no longer generating the desired monetary reward.

This is why so many people are rescuing greyhounds and horses– much of the racing industry doesn’t seem to give a rip about God’s creatures once they start slowing down. Rescue groups and kindhearted people are standing in the gap that this industry has created.

If the dog and horse racing industries can’t figure out a humane way to ensure quality of life for their “assets” when they’re done running for people’s entertainment, then they need to be shut down. I’d like to see the former be driven out of business immediately, and the links below will illustrate why.

http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/greyhound_racing/facts/greyhound_racing_facts.html

http://www.greyhounds.org/gpl/contents/entry.html

http://www.nogreyhoundracing.com/

Sometimes I can’t believe it’s 2010 and our nation is still in the Dark Ages when it comes to humane treatment of animals. We allow circus animals to be chained and tormented, look the other way in regard to cockfighting and dog fighting among certain demographics, let highly intelligent mammals like orcas spend decades in small tubs, and on the list goes.

Animals think, feel, need companionship, and must have daily needs met like us. They are not our equals, but when God made them, he told man to take care of them, and our species has done a very poor job of watching over our furry and feathered charges.

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The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. -Gandhi

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©2010 H. Hiatt/wildninja.wordpress.com. All articles/posts on this blog are copyrighted original material that may not be reproduced in part or whole in any electronic or printed medium without prior permission from H. Hiatt/wildninja.wordpress.com.