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Having now watched the RTE Investigates programme, Horses – Making A Killing, I thought I would do a post here to remember Deodoro.
She won a race at Beverley in 2015 when trained by Mark Johnston, and went on to have at least three foals. In the programme, she was shown being mistreated at Shannonside Foods abbatoir in County Kildare, along with many other unnamed horses. None of them were treated with respect, and they did not experience a dignified and calm death.
RIP to them all, they all deserved a much better end.
Oh my goodness that is heartbreaking to read RIP Deodoro you did not deserve to be treated in such a cruel inhumane way 😥
Awful death for any horse and raises many questions, which need answering by slaughterhouse regulators and governments but the racing industry has enough resources to ensure that the animals on which it relies are at least guaranteed a humane end.
This is appallingly inhumane and extremely tragic for all the horses who provide us with such entertaining memories during their racing careers. There is no dignity in sending these wonderful animals to such ghastly places of execution. The next government needs to be charged with the responsibility of bringing these practices out in the open, so that the general public can be made aware of what is happening and focus on the need to change the whole system under which these slaughterhouses operate. If this was done it might persuade kinder people to provide decent homes for retired racehorses rather than send them to such horrible deaths.
The trouble is that horses live a long time, need constant care and a retired horse will cost as much to look after as a young one. And thoroughbreds can’t really live out in fields all year. I now find myself, when I go racing, not only hoping that the horses come back safe but wondering what the future holds for them. Last time I went racing one horse went away in an ambulance and I keep hoping I don’t see it in the memorials section. When I look at quite recent race cards many of the horses in it are no longer racing and I wonder what’s happened to them.
I think along the same lines as you Moehat. I have followed horse racing for over 50yrs & recall many names. I realise only a small no are given forever retirement homes but I would like to believe that they have a kind & respectful end to their lives
Many years ago my partner told me he saw a horse transporter go past him late one night. He rather felt it was going to France. Even though I never saw it myself the image has always haunted me. I could never have gone to our local horse market. I think the problem is most people love horses so much they don’t want to think of what happens to them when they no longer fulfil a purpose? I know I don’t.
I think there are two issues here. The first one, which in theory should be easier to solve, is that all former racehorses deserve a good death. What I mean by this is that they should be treated well up until the point of death, and that the death itself occurs in a humane manner. Even where a horse’s life is ending in a way that we may view as unpalatable such as going to an abbatoir, this should still be possible.
The much harder issue is finding good homes for former racehorses so that as many as possible can live out long and happy lives. Clearly there remain massive problems here, and I suspect an attempt to track down all the horses who were in training in Britain and Ireland a decade ago would reveal very dispiriting results.
For example, in a follow-up to the RTE programme, they mentioned a point-to-point meeting where five horses who had competed were soon after traced to the nearby slaughterhouse. I wonder how common this is.
There are lots of good people doing heroic work with ex-racehorses, but the industry is still doing far too much blind eye turning. I appreciate that racehorses with future potential are much more exciting to their owners than last year’s cast-offs, but we have a responsibility to all the horses involved in our sport.
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