It's been proven that at least one of the horses mentioned in this video as killed is still alive. Also - the original rehomer of War End (a jockey who rode him while he raced) struggled to find him a reliable place to live. He was passed on through several hands long AFTER he left the track (and her hands) and despite one of those people promising her he wouldn't end up slaughtered he disappeared not long after. She didn't see him again until this video.
NSW horse racing regulations require owners to register a home for a retiring horse. From their official records only 1% of Thoroughbreds are listed as heading to slaughter directly from the racetrack. If any of the other 99% end up at slaughter (often YEARS down the track) it is not the fault of the racing industry. It is the fault of the equestrian(s) the horse has landed with.
Despite the fact that the industry is not liable for horses who have been out of their system for YEARS, racing in Australia has since pledged around $
It's been proven that at least one of the horses mentioned in this video as killed is still alive. Also - the original rehomer of War End (a jockey who rode him while he raced) struggled to find him a reliable place to live. He was passed on through several hands long AFTER he left the track (and her hands) and despite one of those people promising her he wouldn't end up slaughtered he disappeared not long after. She didn't see him again until this video.
NSW horse racing regulations require owners to register a home for a retiring horse. From their official records only 1% of Thoroughbreds are listed as heading to slaughter directly from the racetrack. If any of the other 99% end up at slaughter (often YEARS down the track) it is not the fault of the racing industry. It is the fault of the equestrian(s) the horse has landed with.
Despite the fact that the industry is not liable for horses who have been out of their system for YEARS, racing in Australia has since pledged around $25 million from the profit of racing to help ex-racehorses in the future.
NO anti-racing agency or organisation has pledged money towards helping horses. In fact, of the $40,000 worth of donations to the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses in the financial year of 2018, a grand total of $0 was pledged to help racehorses either domestically or internationally. 100% of that $40,000 went onto "wages" and "expenses". Anti-racing fanatics help ZERO racehorses.
The ABC report was incredibly biased and tactically timed to shock/horrify naive viewers right before one of the biggest races of the Australian calendar. Humans naturally gravitate towards negative aspects - anti-racing protesters will tell you all about the six horses killed in the last ten years in the Melbourne Cup and make it sound like it's such a common occurrence, but they won't tell you about the 130+ horses who completed the same race safely during that same time period. Nor the thousand who successfully raced around the country on that same day.
My advice to anti-racing supporters? Walk a mile in my shoes. I work sixty-hour weeks year round, work holidays like Christmas and New Years, I've started work as early as 12:30am just to take care of Thoroughbreds. Came in on my days off to accompany sick foals to the vet clinic. Photographed countless slow racehorses who need to find new homes as riding mounts. Stayed late after work to walk a colicking colt while waiting for the emergency vet.
Yeah there are a handful of bad eggs in the industry, but it's no different to the heavy handed rollkur dressage riders, the reining riders forcing 2yos down onto their bellies, barrel racers spurring the crap out of their QHs, the show jumpers lashing their WBs for refusing a fence. For every highly publicised cruel racehorse trainer there's some old battler who sleeps in his stable when the wildfires are around so he can quickly evacuate his horses, there's the jockey who loves a horse so much she tries to find it a home, there's the old fella who's been working on a stud so long he foaled the grandmother of a new season crop.
Don't be blinded by the violent propaganda ABC would have you believe. That's not the racing industry. Those are unfortunate horses who have come from irresponsible riders.