To wonder why people still bet on the grand national

[Springtime336]

-2 horses have already died at ladies day

• approx 200-250 horses die every year in the uk in horse racing

Really sad

@Pk37 amazing! Thank you for caring about the animals over your own entertainment/ making money, thankfully more and more people are moving away from betting like you.

@KissingInTheRain but you yourself said emotion was more important than logic when assessing the value of humans vs the value of animals. You can’t have it both ways. Either fact and logic are the be all and end all or we need to take into account emotional considerations (I.e. empathy).

No I didn’t. I said that logic wasn’t the explanation for why human lives are more valued than animals’ lives. The explanation for that is that we’re humans.

If you equate animal life with human life you haven’t gained compassion, you’ve abandoned your humanity.

@TheTitOfTheIceberg

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but in answer to the question of what better regulation I'd like to see -
In racing in general - horses not broken and raced as young as they are currently. I do think that putting the body and brain under such strain leads to issues later in life, I think delaying training even by a year to allow a bit more physical maturity would help.

• more responsibility from owners and trainers towards retired horses or those that don't make the grade. The yard near me only rehomes to approved and recommend homes, and it's great, they take back horses and re-home them again and also re school in between so the horse is more suited to a pleasure horse life. I've been around horses a long time and unfortunately have seen a lot of ex racers go to the wrong people - because they are cheap and free, people who don't understand that they need re schooling, and have different needs than your average horse, and the horse doesn't get cared for or re schooled properly. They often get passed around and end up labelled as dangerous. I'd like to see that reduced. RoR and other organisations are making headway with this, but it still happens more than it should. This however is true of the equestrian world in general, people buy horses with no idea of their needs, and the horses suffer because of that. I've seen big, beautiful horses turned into obese, laminitic wrecks in a few months by owners that over feed, don't turn out because the horse may get dirty and don't exercise enough, yet laughed at people like me with my home fixed rugs and scruffy, muddy - but healthy horse.

In the grand national itself - the sizes of the fences lowered, but to be fair I'd like to see that in eventing too. Though in eventing there's only one horse, so the rider and horse get a better shot at getting it right. Which is my next point too about too many horses going at the fences at speed, in a bunch. I think it'd help reduce injuries to jockeys too.

Overall I think welfare standards are probably higher in racing and competition because the horses need to be at peak condition to perform, and as I've said before, abused or beaten horses won't perform as well as a happy, well looked after horse.

Brilliant I agree with most of your points, and would add that I’d support a reduction in the GN field size to 35 or so. Up For Review was brought down by the horse falling in front of him, so fewer runners would give the horses more space.

The only one of your points I disagree with is lowering the fences, as that would actually encourage the horses to “hurdle” them faster, and speed increases risk (that’s why hurdle races are invariably run in a faster time than steeplechases over the same distance). Slightly higher fences, so long as they have a clear ground line - which the National fences do, thanks to the orange boards on the take off side - encourage the horses to get back on their hocks and jump properly.

If approx. 200 horses die each year, well the British Horseracing Association says there was a grand total of 4749 individual runners YE Jan 2019 so the overall death rate of racing is over 4%. Most of the horse deaths will be in jumping and there were 2679 individual NH runners that year. If only 180 of the horse deaths were NH then nearly 7% of horses raced over jumps died on the track. Don't know about anyone else but I find those numbers bloody shocking. All those empty stalls.

I was under the impression that racers do hurdle fences, in order to keep speed. A showjumper is taught to sit back on his hocks and power up and over, I thought the idea of the top of race fences being brush and not solid was to enable them to hurdle the fences, as sitting back on the hocks will require an adjustment of stride and therefore slow down? My thought were that if the fences were lowered then it gives the horse more opportunity to clear the fence, or at least not catch a leg on the way and cause a rotational fall or unbalanced landing, while not needing to adjust speed and stride.
But then, a reduced field so the horses have a better line of sight would also help achieve that too.
That said, horses misjudge all the time, my old horse got himself beached on a 5 bar gate once (getting away from a loose dog chasing the horses but that's a whole other thread!) I was on my way to the field with some other liveries as we clocked what was happening to see a couple fly the gate. Mine totally misjudged his take off and took at least a stride out of not more and landed on the gate (luckily unhurt but shaken) and he had a clear line of sight. So I guess it will still be a risk even with lower fences and less horses.

@KissingInTheRain

Well these are your exact words...
“If you want to be logical, why be bothered about animals’ lives at all? As it happens, being normal, and therefore emotional as well as logical...”

“Humanity” is defined as either being human (which I’m pretty sure I am) or the quality of being humane, benevolence. So I certainly haven’t lost that as I think it’s more benevolent not to use and kill sentient beings than to use and kill them.

So basically, based on your own statements, it seems like you use emotion as an excuse when it suits you but ridicule others when emotion is behind their reasoning...

Because they enjoy it and because it’s a huge money making industry .

I hope all those against horse racing are also against owning pets .

But I don't whip my pets and shoot them in the head if they get hurt

Load of utter - but you do keep them for your own enjoyment . I’m assuming you would pts if they were injured or in pain .

Shooting them in the head is the fastest and most effective way to end their suffering .

I hope all those against horse racing are also against owning pets .

Why? Racehorses are bred to race. Pets are generally bred to curl up on the sofa. Yes I would have my pet PTS If they were injured, but the injury would never be caused by something I made them do. Surely you are aware of the difference?

My old horse got 'shot in the head' because he was hurt(ing) - arthritis. The vet was the one who told me he was suffering and the level of pain relief he could take would make him ill and he'd likely die slowly and in pain from that.
Presumably I should have just let him suffer until he could no longer walk and died after months of suffering? Horses are destroyed because they won't recover from the illness or injury they have.
And he was shot because lethal injection in horses was in its first phases, and unreliable. A bolt gun is the least distressing (in my experience, may be different now) way to put a large animal down.

Kissing you would like to believe "It’s about the self-righteousness of animal lovers and the satisfaction they get from condemning people and telling them what they can and can’t do" because then you can make it in your mind all about how other people just want to spoil your fun. (it seems to me you are projecting about this).

I don't get satisfaction from condemning people for having fun etc. I just know that seeing that horse writhe on the ground in agony under those circumstances is wrong. I wonder what you feel about big animal hunting in the wild? People who like hunting big cats, elephants etc are "having fun" - are people who disagree with that trying to spoil their fun too? By your reckoning they would be. What justification do you give to big animal hunters? Others might "have fun" at dog shows - something you said you disagreed with - are you spoiling their "fun" by disagreeing with it?

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Sorry, hit ‘post’ by mistake.

If no horses died in races would you still object?