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First let me add that this
surprise me about Animal Welfare. When the debate about the National was going on, I suspected that it was really all of racing they wanted banned.
I didn’t see the race live, and the first thing I saw was the picture from the Daily Mirror, which was intended to shock and horrify. Reviewing the race on the racing post website, it looks to me as if "Wiggy" (Wigmore Hall) leg snapped as it
appeared to bend unnaturally.
If this was the case then being put down was the kindest action to take.
The trainer Michael Bell also supported this action. Here’s what he had to say about it on his website.
The sport of racing received support from the RSPCAon Saturday after the Daily Mirror chose to lead its front page on Saturday with a picture of a vet pointing a gun at the forehead of an injured racehorse. The story continued on pages four and five with what the newspaper described as “the great horse racing debate” but David Muir, the RSPCA’s equine consultant, suggested there was no case for the sport to answer.
“I can’t see that the vet has done anything wrong, or the racecourse either,” Muir said of the pictures, which showed an incident at Doncaster the previous Saturday when Wigmore Hall was put down after shattering a bone in a leg in mid-race. “Shooting a horse is probably the most humane and quick way that you could put him down,” Muir said.
“I’ve been in racing for 18 years and we’ve looked at different methods. Shooting is quick, it’s decisive, it’s humane. In the circumstances where a horse has suffered a catastrophic injury, what would worry me more would be the delay involved in splinting the leg, taking the horse away and putting him down somewhere else after the horse has been suffering all that time.
“I think people realise that horses are put down. I don’t think people want to see it. If a horse is suffering and has to be put down, the vet makes that decision and I can’t see that the guy’s done anything wrong. It isn’t a nice thing to see. If a national newspaper thinks that’s what its readers want to see, that’s up to them. It must have been a slow news day.”
The pictures of Wigmore Hall, showing him before and after being shot, were passed to the Mirror by the animal rights group Animal Aid. Green screens had been erected between the horse and the grandstand as he was put down but the unidentified photographer was on the other side, of the horse with an unimpeded view.
“They could have waited for a second lot of screens to arrive so that they could put screens all the way around him,” Muir said, “but all that would have done is make the horse’s suffering worse. And the person who sneaks around the back with a camera could have been an issue itself. He could have distracted the vet.
Here here to Michael Bell and his statement issued against the Daily Mirror.
Wigmore Hall was a favourite of so many people and to have these pictures of his final moments splashed all over the front pages of a National newspaper are an insult to all involved with this horse and to those who were doing their best to ease his suffering the only humane way possible.
I hope the Daily Mirror will publish an apology to Michael Bell and his family and connections of Wigmore Hall for using this incident to fuel support for the Animal Aid Organisation.
Wigmore Hall deserves to be remembered for the wonderful racehorse that he was and hopefully Doncaster will name a race in his honour next year.
Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out...Whoever got pictures like that on a racecourse, surely must have been accredited to work on the course? You would need a professional camera and be on the course to get those photographs.
There is a problem giving the injection to a horse that has a lot of adrenaline in its system post race. It takes a long time to work and the horse can become very distressed and to see it struggling is very distressing for the people with it too.
I know of people who used the injection for their horses thinking it would be more humane having horrible experiences and using the gun for future euthanasia.Nice to read a post from someone with first-hand knowledge of horse euthanasia, thanks
Presumably the lethal injection of horses involves administering three different drugs sequentially – Thiopental, a Curare derivative and Potassium Chloride: those used for lethal injection of humans in the USA and elsewhere
If reports of the differing responses to death-row humans when given these drugs are true then this can be anything but a quick and humane method of euthanasia
For an old or injured horse in the peaceful surroundings of its stable then chemical euthanasia may be the kindest method but on the racecourse with, as you rightly say, adrenaline from its exertions and pain coursing through its body then it seems a ‘no-brainer’ to me that the correctly aimed bullet is the quickest and most humane method
Infact, death by firing squad is quite probably the most humane way to execute people but guns and bullets are, not surprisingly, inextricably linked with blood, war and battles; so they are illogically viewed as brutal, whereas logically the bullet, aimed correctly is the best method of ensuring a quick and ‘humane’ death
Humanely euthanising would mean a lethal injection andwith someone familiar surrounding the horse in its final moments.A bullet in the head is not really human.
I think castrating a horse is also a bit of a bad habit. We love to rule nature, so why don*t we perform it on humans? If it`s that good?Lethal injections are not always instant, take Joseph Rudolph Wood III, a prisioner in the state prison complex in Florence, Arizona. It took 15 doses to kill him.
I watched a documentary on the subject of the most humane way of carrying out the death sentence on human beings. Hanging, the electric chair, the gas chamber and lethal injection were all examined and discussed.
The scientific conclusion was that having a human breathe Nitrogen instead of air was the most painless way to extinguish a human life. The victim actually experiences euphoria as the brain is starved of oxygen and scientists concluded it was the least cruel method possible.
These findings were put to pro death penalty organisations in the USA who dismissed it as a method for despatching murderers, because they wanted the perpetrators to
suffer as much as possible
and that "The crueller the method of death the better"
I find it puzzling that people who despise the idea of murder so much, can advocate a long and tortuous death for a fellow human being, albeit a murderer. Surely the least we can do is be more more humane than those who committed a murder. What separates us from murderers if we desire as grisly a death as possible in revenge?
Anyway, I am all for the quickest way to end a stricken Horse’s suffering. It is better that the poor animal is at peace, rather than prolong its suffering to appease those who offended by the imagery and would rather the process took longer and was sanitised to protect their sensitivities.
Whether the use of Nitrogen could be a method for sending a stricken horse to its rest I do not know but I would like to see a practicable method that helped minimise distress to the animal.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
I can’t believe this actually happened…
I trust that they will be putting graphic images of slaughterhouses (Halal AND otherwise) on their front pages on a regular basis from here on. I know it might impede on the sneering moral righteousness of over 90% of the readership but fair is fair.
Personally speaking as a vegetarian (for ethical reasons – the horse has long bolted on health and environmental reasons), I feel there are very very few more hypocritical than carnivores who decry racing for its cruelty.
The shot to the head, when performed correctly, is the most humane method as it should have an instant result. The horses metabololism does not suit injection, particularly at times of stress. The real scandal is that some racecourse vets are incompetant at delivering the shot and do not get a first time result. This must be addressed with more training/better vets.
Regarding the Mirror; posting on a forum will not make a shred of impact. We all need to hit them financially and reputationally. We need to be as savvy as Animal Aid. Please
– write to the proprieters stating you will not purchase any of their product again, not just the Daily Mirror, and calmly explain why. Explain you are also writing to their principal advertisors notifying them of your disgust and that you will boycott their products until they withdraw their advertising
– write to the principal advertisors as above. Certainly organisations with links to racing such as bookmakers, and other major companies with a reputation to protect as well
In summary, make them wish they never regurgitated this Animal Aid stuff, and make them remember not to do it again.
I was in Singapore when an American trained horse had to be put down after a catastrophic leg injury. The young American jockey was in tears and told the connections "I can’t believe they shot him" and they were distressed. I asked the official vet why this had happened and they said it was far quicker and better for the horse and was their approved method.
Subsequently I’ve had my own horse put to sleep using lethal injection (whilst I held him). They first of all inject a sedative to make them sleepy and then give another injection of a lethal dose of chemicals. It takes quite a while and I think if a horse was in immediate pain the shot from a bolt gun would be preferable.
in a self-absorbed age, compassion slips easily into a confused narcissism where the observer elevates his own emotions above the actual needs of the patient:
" I feel uncomfortable seeing this being done to them, so it must be wrong, they must feel the same way, it must not be done. The only things permitted are those I am comfortable to see."
quite appropriate there’s a Mirror involved.
I belong to a number of racing related Facebook Groups, many of which have been filled with comment about the Mirror article.
One post was from a vet who keeps horses herself and she said that she would always choose the gun over the injection.
She Writes: ….Horses have no idea what a gun is, they all know what a needle is as well as the time component."
It can take a while to kill a horse with an injection. This is probably why we have the jumps missed out in races, when in the 1960s and 1970s the injured horse had been despatched and everything cleared away by the time the runners came round again.I note that the Racing Post (front page lead story) and BHA are now indignant that the images have now been reproduced on the online version of the Daily Mail.
Having said its peace forcibly in relation to the Daily Mirror story I would have thought the racing industry was were better off letting things pass rather than just perpetuating the story.
One thing racing isn’t short of is PR types.
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