The Terrible Side of Horse Racing

Is horse racing a harmless test of speed, or is there a grim reality behind it?

Abuse to Yearlings
Racehorses are trained at the age of eighteen months, when their skeletal system is still growing. Also the connective tissues in the joints of the horse aren't fully developed. This can lead to premature arthritis. If a horse who has been trained and made to work hard at a young age and a horse who has been trained at the proper time are made to work for the same period of time and same amount of work then mostly the horse who has been trained and made to work hard at a young age will get more problem. Many people say that you shouldn't ride a horse below the age of three or four. Also at the age of three or four you shouldn't make the horse do a lot of hard work like jumping.

Horses racing out of the starting gates

These young colts and fillies are unprepared to handle the pressure of racing on a hard track at high speeds. The hard training schedule to prepare young horses for the 2-year-olds training auctions and the Triple Crown season, along with drugs is just too much for these juvenile horses, and often results in deadly injuries.
 Under Tack Shows
When the horses become 2-year-olds, in the spring, thoroughbred racehorses are taken to 'under tack shows', where they are forced to perform at breakneck speeds to impress the buyers at auctions. Although these horses are called 2-year-olds many of these are actually yearlings, and are forced to go faster than they will ever again in their lives.
Pushing these immature horses at such speeds often results in catastrophic breakdowns, career- ending and life-ending injuries while training and during auctions. Because of this reason also many horses have extremely short careers, and retire at a very young age.

Surfaces of Racetracks
Racehorses in the U.S. are trained and raced on hard packed dirt surfaces.  Studies have shown that hard packed dirt surfaces increase the risk of catastrophic injury to racehorses.
There are many alternatives to dirt tracks, such as artificial and natural turf. Both of these have shown a reduction in injuries to racehorses.

Use of Whips

Jockey whipping horse

Often jockeys whip the horses mercilessly (on instruction of trainers). Organizations like PETA have been trying to ban the whip. In 2009, thanks to a lot of persistent pressure from PETA, several prominent tracks have replaced hard leather whips with softer air-cushioned whips. Softer air-cushioned whips do not leave welts and cuts like the hard leather whips, but still whips should be completely banned.

After Retirement
We expect that a racehorse retires to a nice life frolicking in pastures. The fact is that only famous and big racehorses, who the public like a lot, or racehorses who can earn money in stud are left to enjoy life in pastures. Those who can't earn money in stud or aren't very famous are sent to the slaughter house. Since the last horse slaughterhouse in U.S. has been closed several years ago, the racehorses are shipped to slaughterhouses in Canada, Mexico or Japan where they are turned into dog food or glue. Also, their meat is exported to countries like France and Japan, where it is considered a delicacy. The horses have to endure days of terrifying transport crammed together without water or food. The horses are slaughtered in the same method cows are slaughtered in. Horses are not used to being herded around like cows, as a result, once together, the thrash about in order to avoid being shot by the captive bolt-gun. The captive bolt-gun is supposed to make them unconscious before their throats are cut.

The Stud 
Mares usually give birth in the summer months when the weather is mild. In breeding racehorses though, they try that racehorses are born as close as possible to August 1. This allows maximum time to train for races.

To achieve this unnatural cycle breeders adjust the temperature, artificially lengthen days by using lighting and inject drugs like 'prostaglandins' into the female. Weeks after giving birth, when the mares have reached fertility, they are forced to stand for a stallion so that they can produce a foal the next season. Under natural conditions mares produce a foal once in two years.
Drugs are often used on racehorses for better performance. But the drugs also mask vulnerabilities in horses, which increases the chance that genetically weak horses will end up in the breeding pool and their weaknesses will be passed on. Once a horse is in the breeding pool, they are used repeatedly.

Yearling Sales
As their is a big number of racehorses born every year, all cannot become champions. Foals who are faultless are taken care of extremely well. However, minor deformities can render a horse worthless. Some minor deformities can be operated on or treated, but this risks further injury to the young horse. To make these young horses look more attractive to buyers at the yearling sales, horses are subjected to a regime of exercise, a high protein diet and sometimes drugs to increase their appeal and make them more profitable.

Stabling of Racehorses
As racehorses remain in their stable for a good part of the day, their bone density deteriorates; the bones become weaker. This happens to people also. This is probably a big reason for so many horses breaking down while training and racing.

A fallen horse and jockey getting trampled by other racehorses

Race track stabling houses hundreds of horses. As a result there just isn't enough space to have the horses turned out in pastures or pens. Also, if space existed, a high energy horse would want to play. Sometimes while playing the horse can hurt himself/herself. Horse owners often don't want to risk their horse being injured, as a result they keep them in a stable. A stable is safer but less natural.

Use of Drugs
Trainers and Veterinarians keep injured horses racing by giving them a variety of legal drugs. These drugs do not heal the wound, they just mask the pain and control the inflammation. This leads to break downs, as the horse is still injured, but is training and racing.
Drugs are also given to horses to enhance their performance.
Some drugs also have the ability to mask the presence of other - often illegal drugs. These drugs are used to mask the presence of other drugs, which are given for enhancing performance and to control
pain and inflammation in injured horses.

New Owners and Constant Travel
During a racehorse's career, it may change owners and trainers several times. 

In 'Claiming races' or 'Selling races' the horses in the race are all for sale and may be purchased and taken away by their new owner immediately after the race.
Most breeders sell 1-year-olds at yearling actions. Many of these yearlings are bought by 'pinhookers', who keep and train the horses for a year and then sell them again as 2-year-olds in training auctions. After that the horse will be bought and sold many times during their racing careers.
Each day brings new uncertainty to the horse, as no owner is committed to a horse throughout his or her life time. Horses have to often undergo long journeys. They have to adjust to new people, different schedules and different type of care.

You should also see this article by PETA on horse racing http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-in-entertainment/horse-racing-.aspx

Consuming Meat or Ourselves?

 A Swamiji was being shown a meat factory. Taking him through various departments the guide showed him all the latest machinery involved in meat processing. He told him that it was a completely automated plant and that entire meat production process was automatic. “They put a pig from one end of machine and receive sausages from the other.”

“Fantastic.” Smiled Swamiji. “But can they do the reverse also?” I mean can they put sausages and retrieve pigs?

The guide was speechless.

Swamiji smiled again and said “If you cannot give life to these animals, what right do you have to rob them of it?”

An even bitter fact is that we are not only killing the animals, we are actually killing entire planet. Excessive meat eating is playing havoc with the ecology of mother Earth.  

There was a time, till about 70 years back, when in most parts of the world the meat production industry was very much eco-friendly. But that cannot be said today. Every stage of meat industry is a torture for global ecology.

In days gone by the goats and cows roamed around grassy pastures all the day; today most meat producing animals are confined to extremely congested places and fed with industrially produced corn and soya – something for which their intestines are not designed.

Most animals don’t get sufficient roughage, and have non-functioning bowels quite like many of us human beings. To overcome this, they are fed with artificial roughage pallets.

Most animals spend their life in dark, crowded places, and are injected with growth hormones in order to yield faster meat growth.

In short we treat them not as living beings but as meat factories.

However one of the biggest truth in this world is Newton’s Third Law of Motion, which says “To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. This is what is happening here too: what we are giving to animals; they return it back to us. We feed them with UNNATURAL DIET and they provide us with UNNATURAL MEAT. Today most meat is suffused with chemicals and hormones which only increase the diseases among meat consumers.

I can go on and on...but the message is very clear: we would help ourselves if we stop eating industrially grown meat. We think we are consuming animal meat; the truth is we are consuming ourselves. 

By Shailendra Kakani

Pig Slaughter

Most people say that pigs are dirty. Well, that isn't true, as they roll in mud to keep away the flies. And even if the look dirty, that doesn't keep them from feeling pain. After all, they still are animals.

For pigs about to be slaughtered stress comes in many forms. They get stressed up because of deprivation of food and water, rough handling, exhaustion due to transportation over long distances, and mixing of animals reared separately, resulting in fighting. Stress can even result to death which is uncommon in pigs for slaughter.
Pigs are fed on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO's), and their feces are loaded with antibiotic-resistant microbes and heavy metals.
Transport Terrors

To make the pigs get into the truck the workers may beat them on their sensitive backs and noses or stick electric prods into their rectums.
'Downers' are sick and injured pigs who are so week they are unable to stand or walk. The 'downers' will be kicked, struck with electric prods and finally hauled out of the trucks only to be slaughtered.
In winter some pigs die frozen to the sides of the trucks while in summer pigs die of heat exhaustion. When additional animals are forced to pile up on top of the pigs who are already inside some suffocate. All the pigs are panicked, and are screaming. They desperately try to get away. Some even die of heart attack.
The pigs are so frightened that they scream and try to get away. There is lack of air in the trucks, as a result pigs struggle to breathe. They usually aren't given food or water for the whole journey, and the journeys are often hundreds of miles long.
In the Slaughter House

Slaughtered pig

All their lives the pigs haven't walked much, as a result there legs and lungs are so weak they can barely walk. And then they see space ahead of them and get overjoyed and start running out of the truck. Most often the pigs are running for the first time in their lives. They jump and buck, overjoyed, and then suddenly their legs can't bear their weight and the pigs collapse, their bodies full of pain from mistreatment and abuse on the factory farms.
Many pigs aren't stunned properly, as a result they are still alive and conscious when they enter the scalding tanks. The scalding tanks are meant to remove the pigs hair and soften their skin.
How painful would it be for us if we were slaughtered like that?
The average pigs life is 10-15 years. When we slaughter them their life is reduced to a horrible 6 months.

Piglet

To stop all this cruelty we will have to turn vegetarian or vegan. I have been a vegetarian all my life and I feel absolutely normal and healthy.
In fact some people say that after the pigs have been kept and slaughtered in such horrible conditions it isn't healthy to eat their meat, and it may make us sick.

Bobby Calves

Calves are such cute little animals and yet people kill them for their meat. How can we kill these cute little baby animals?

What Happens Bobby calves?
New born calves that are less than two weeks old who are separated from their mothers are called 'bobby calves'.
In dairy farms cows are forced to give birth to calves every year. Then almost all the calves are separated from their mother within twelve hours, and usually they don't even stay long on the farm.

New born calf

Cows form strong maternal bonds with their calves, so when they are separated from their calves they can be heard frantically crying out for their calves. They can even be heard crying out for their baby's  even days after they are separated.
Bobby calves are kept together and usually fed once a day with milk, milk replacer or colostrum (as humans want the mother cows milk for themselves). 
In Australia the calves are allowed to starve for upto 30 hours before slaughter. Research has found that this cruelty is harmful to the calves.
As the bobby calves will soon go to slaughter and are worth not much to the dairy farmers they don't get the same amount of housing, care, attention or cleanliness as the valuable bull calves being reared for veal or the replacement heifer calves (females). Often the bobby calves do not even receive basic care.

The conditions bobby calves are kept in

Transport requirements for bobby calves state that the calves should be minimum five days old before the can travel to the abattoir. As the age of a calf can't be judged accurately often they are younger than five days old.
The calves are even transported for upto ten hours, and crammed into trucks.
These are some of the problems bobby calves face while they are transported because of their young age:

1. Like all young animals bobby calves have got underdeveloped following 'behavior', or in other words the don't stay as a group or move where they are supposed to go. This makes loading and unloading difficult. The baby calves are prodded, pushed and even thrown.
2. They cannot handle stress, motion and length of transport.
3. At calf sales and during transport they are exposed to the elements and often aren't provided with bedding and have little space to lie down.
4. They are too young to go without milk for extended times.

After that the bobby calves face a painful and terrifying slaughter.

To help prevent bobby calf slaughter we should stop drinking milk and stop eating calf meat.

Slaughtered calves

 To see a video about the slaughter of bobby calves you can visit this link http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3681709.htm