A great day, I love it - we all place a bet, down to the youngest in the family, my two year old neice - who picked the blue one as her favourite colour. We all sat and watched and screamed at the telly and we all lost our money graciously. I've never had a problem with horse racing, but apparently it's a controversial sport these days, well according to the fabled PETA anyway.
PETA write some highly controversial articles themselves, sensationalising highlighted points for their own 'greater good' and are quite happy to only give a one sided view to anything they write about.
Now I'm all for people having their own opinions, but please form them with some research yourself not just by listening to some half arsed one sided drivel that someone is forcing on you! Don't even get me started on the fox hunting stance!
So I saw a PETA article yesterday about how bad the Grand National is and how we should all not be supporting such a barbaric sport. So let me just put my own views out there...
A horse will not run if it does not want to. Trust me, first hand experience of owning horses proved this point to me time and time again. No amount of shouting, whipping, kicking, or any kind of gentle persuasion would make my old mare move if she didn't want to. She was more likely to reverse at high speed if she didn't want to do something you've asked of her. No joke.
I believe this was also demonstrated at the National yesterday. So... anyone see it? See the coverage of the loose horse which lost it's rider over the first few fences? Yep the one who had the free choice to stop, graze, run on the flat... Did it? Nope! It was up the front leading the way over the jumps, all by itself!! Not even following the crowd, actually in the front doing what it was bred and loves to do.
Excessive use of the whip. Is NOT allowed! Yes to an untrained eye a jockey 'whipping the wind' looks like he is using his crop on his horse, I assure you they are not! (NB there are some she's in racing too, apologies for generalising!) a jump jockey is not permitted to strike his horse no more than 8 times in a race and there are very high penalties by the British Horse Racing Authority for any jockey not adhering to this. Further more jockeys use air cushioned whips to minimise the impact on horses.
Drugging horses is not allowed. People get banned for it, as highlighted in their article - contradiction somewhat?!
Horses die on the racetrack. Yes they do. But horses also die in their field minding their own business too (from personal experience). Wouldn't you rather die doing something you love?
PETA also state 'it's all about the money'. Ok, well what do you do your job for? I, not ordinarily being a betting lady myself, would simply bet a proportion of the reason you do your job is money!
Jockey's are the only sports people I ever see, congratulating each other, commiserating with each other and truly cheering each other on. Yes it's all about the race, but these people who race against each other are one big team. Isn't that what sportsmanship should be about?
See the National coverage yesterday after Many Clouds won? The only thing his trainer was interested in was the horses well being and could not concentrate on the interview given, until it was made clear to him all was ok.
There's loads of other points I could address, but frankly I'd bore you all to tears. Please just remember when reading such articles, that these could be one sided, could be not researched very well, and hey it's t'internet... Simply might not be true! I don't expect you to agree with me, but do read around a subject before sharing and believing for fact.
Thanks for listening!
TTFN, Sammy xx
P.s..... All 39 horses that raced yesterday are all alive and all well. A nasty fall for one, which looked like it might result in tragedy has thankfully not.
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