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@Marlingford – I agree. The arguments of the Chair of the BHA Welfare Board (the Chair, note) were alarming in the face of the evidence, and Hoiles quite rightly took him to task over the line that these are ‘isolated incidents’. The use of the ‘with respect’ comment was particularly telling. I cannot recollect any terrestrial racing broadcaster having the gumption to challenge a regulatory figure ‘live’ so obviously before, so RH – ‘thank you’ from those of us who care deeply about this issue and for the future of a responsible racing industry. Not by any stretch of the imagination is 4k ‘isolated incidents’; neither is it a sensible tactic to try to reduce the welfare issues raised by this programme to that one abattoir. I sincerely hope that the media keeps the pressure on.
On which note, it was good to see a piece from Khadijah Mellah on ITV’s Twitter feed today, on the ex Varian horse, UAE King, as a ‘happy hacker’ learning to jump (slowly) and doing a bit of beginner’s dressage. It’s slightly longer than the usual such feature, and touches on some of the challenges of re-homing, even if it doesn’t major on these.
For completeness, I’m also posting the link to Lydia Hislop’s piece for the Sporting Life, which makes many of the same arguments that have appeared on this thread:
https://www.sportinglife.com/racing/news/where-now-after-panorama-expose/193382Very poor from Barry Johnson. Exactly the sort of response we had feared in this forum – “isolated incident”, “one bad apple”, “no British horses involved”, “just this one abattoir” etc. The investigation hasn’t even begun, yet the BHA has apparently decided the outcome. He has no idea of the extent of this problem yet seems keen to play it down, even without any evidence to back it up. Well done RH for calling him out. Lucky that other high profile figures in the industry are prepared to take a more realistic stance.
Some of the downplaying of the Panorama findings from a British angle has focused on most of the horses at Drury’s being from Ireland, and that comparatively few British-based racehorses were slaughtered there.
This made me wonder how many racehorses are exported from Great Britain to the EU or beyond, and what happens to them. World Horse Welfare state that 17,491 horses (not specifically racehorses) were exported from the UK to other European Union Member States in 2017, which seems a very high figure. There is more on their findings at the link below.
Very late the party on this but I’ve only just got round to seeing it. No sensationalism, just a lot of cold, hard facts.
Pretty uncomfortable viewing for most within the sport I suspect. Blows the whole ‘racehorses are treated better than humans’ myth right out of the water. Whilst they are useful to the owner and trainer perhaps…
As always you have to look at this from Joe Public’s perspective and when he sees a horse that won its owners £170k getting its brains sprayed across the walls of a barn he’s going to ask some serious questions. Don’t be surprised if one of those questions is ‘do I want anything to do with racing?’ and the answer is ‘no’.
Agreed Tonge, Barry Johnson in depressing ‘mind your own business’ mode. What a prat.
BUY THE SUN
Blimey. Looks like the BHA is actually taking some positive action! https://www.racingtv.com/news/bha-rule-amendment-to-sign-all-racehorses-out-of-human-food-chain
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