The Grand National. When will they stop this cruel race for human entertainment?

Can't we try to improve all horses' lives?

How do you know they love it? The ones who die or get injured probably don't.

What do you think of what happened to Gold Dancer?

I don't think anyone here has said that riding should be banned.

Love a good AI response....I dont need a bracketed explanation of what crib biting is......get educated on the things you hate so much.

Let me guess, you’ve never visited a racing yard in your life?

I love horse racing. I was at Aintree this week and also attend around 50+ other meetings every year.

I’ve been to every UK racecourse and many overseas. I’ve owned/part owned a number of racehorses and have visited many yards over the years. I can safely say that the majority of posts on this thread are complete nonsense and written from a place of total ignorance.

In what way 'treat like shit'?

Imprisoned in a 14 x 14 box?
Given exercise once a day?
Fed on inappropriate food that causes ulcers?
Burn their legs to supposedly strengthen tendons (pin-firing, legal until 1990, blind eye turned to it by the RCVS since, only banned by the UK racing authorities since 2022) - no veterinary/scientific evidence it actually does anything except force box rest until the injuries heal.
Denied the ability to exhibit natural behaviours like grazing, moving freely, interacting with others of their own kind, form social groups.
Worked and ridden a good 4/5 years BEFORE their bones finish forming, before growth plates close, before various joints particularly those in the pelvis and spine are fully mature.

Heavily aversive measures are used to stop horses objecting - mains electrified edges to box doors to stop cribbing (biting the wooden door edge and frame to alleviate the burning acidic ulcer symptoms) - tongues tied down to stop them getting the tongue over the bit to protect the roof of the mouth from the bits action - mouths strapped shut to achieve same - martingales to stop them raising their head to evade the bits action...

And that is just the legal things - whilst de-nerving/blocking nerves isn't race legal, it happens.

We treat rapists and murderers better.

Gold Dancer didn't look like he loved it yesterday. But he was shot so what do you care

Watching Gold Dancer break his back and drag his legs at the final fence yesterday and then be raced to the finish line to win and immediately be shot. Dead. As the owner and punters counted their winnings. Sick.

I'll never watch again. Its abuse. Its sick

I am Maximus looked like he could go round again at the end. What a handful - I don’t think he will be easy to retrain or keep in retirement.

From the Telegraph:

“The winner will, doubtless, be paraded outside Mullins’s local, The Lord Bagenal, at some stage but do not expect it to last as long as the race.
Explaining the winner’s character, Mullins said: “Normally the horses come to the car park, we have an ice-cream van for the kids and people want their photographs taken with the horses.
“Galopin Des Champs was there for an hour and a half, Lossiemouth for two hours, but I Am Maximus... he ate about three babies and kicked about four pensioners. We had to load him and take him home after five minutes. That’s I Am Maximus, he’ll eat you without salt. He is a character – don’t stand in his way.””

https://x.com/racingtv/status/2043003505405768046?s=46

I watch a few American cowboy horse trainers and similar on YouTube. The Idaho Horseshoeing school deals with some shocking cases of neglect. There’s a huge amount of cruelty in the horse trade over there. I’ve seen a couple of beautiful horses retrained after being rescued from a kill pen. It takes huge skill to retrain them after they have been exposed to such cruelty - they don’t much like people at that stage!

Watch The Clever Cowgirl and see some of the horses she has rescued from auction.

I know, but there's never an outcry say when the Olympics is on to ban the sport.

I do wonder if the different target audience of each sport, impacts some people's views.

There’s lots of cruelty training showjumpers.

Actually I’m beginning to think three day eventing is far worse. I live near Badminton and go every year. I think cross country courses are far too complex these days with many jumps being a combination of two or three at very difficult angles, often involving narrow 90° corners. The best make it look easy but get the approach just slightly wrong and the horse is set up to either run out or fall. These are top horses - they don’t want to run out or fall. They shouldn’t be set up to fail. A certain rider was disciplined for pushing on his obviously very tired horse to finish the course a couple of years or so ago. I think the ground jury are stricter now and will step in to stop the rider from continuing if they see an obviously tired horse. Also there seem to be far more very serious injuries or deaths of event riders - jockeys seem to tumble and roll (of course lots do get injured) but event riders seem to get landed on by a somersaulting horse with fatal consequences. Only recently I have seen a report about a rider who had a very serious head injury a month or so ago. Still comatose and clearly suffered life changing injury.

Hey if I will love it then I'm happy. Hopefully you aren't a dog owner.

But you will never stop racing. It’ll just go underground eventually in the extreme cases. Bit like greyhound racing. At least a few of those stadiums have closed now.

I don't see the same outcry over show-jumping. Horses are also injured/killed after accidents during that sport too.

A “great life”? Ok. Well, I am taking you on a run tomorrow. You might love it, but there is a strong possibility you will break your leg or back and die as a result. Do you fancy it? Honestly?

Get educated about the GN.

Funny thing is, I'm in agreement with you, but have common sense and awareness because I've done my research. The GN is absolutely nothing to worry about compared to the rest of the racing industry. It will never be banned. There are prime time adverts on my local TV showing what a fun family day out the races can be. I still stand by the fact the horses have a great life, and its just something I have to accept.

Well then you are missing out of some of the simplest pleasures in life.

milk, beef, bacon - delicious

your time on this earth is infinite (100yrs if you’re lucky) and long before you and long after you, cows will be milked and beefed, pigs will be bacon’d and people will enjoy (and make fortunes) off horse racing

Someone bet £100,000 on I Am Maximus at 8/1 so they are about £800,000 up.

https://x.com/itvracing/status/2042935718519984199?s=46

What do you eat?