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The user(s) uploading them is/are someone called “Racehorse Deaths”.
There are already some 150+ plus videos from horses that died in the past ten years or so. I don’t know, if YouTube can stop him from publishing even more and I’m not sure the user(s) has/have any rights at all to upload them.
Hope the platform takes them down immediately.Yes, I’d noticed.
Greyhound racing is under threat in Scotland, Jumps racing is coming under increasing scrutiny, and ITV Racing are pushing betting into the background and focussing on the “human interest story.”
Times they are a changing.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Another example where racing’s so called leaders have been asleep at the wheel. They have allowed the anti-racing voices and their allies in the media to set the agenda and gain momentum.
Racing should have been on the front foot explaining everything it is doing to make racing safer and proactively countering the anti-racing arguments. It should have made it clear how catastrophic banning racing would be for the horse population.
Instead it is now on the back foot and facing an anti movement that is growing in confidence and support.
This is a major issue and is not going to go away. I do not think it is fanciful to say that it poses an existential threat to racing, especially combined with the anti-gambling agenda.
And at the risk of upsetting the more vocal political commentators here, I think the anti-racing arguments will be listened to far more sympathetically by a Labour government. Aside from animal rights people generally being on the political left, most racecourses and training centres are in rural areas which are usually Conservative seats.
The world wide woke movement is already penetrating all kinds of sports and cultural events. As usual with the wrong arguments and actions…..
“And at the risk of upsetting the more vocal political commentators here”
Doesn’t upset me because it’s undeniably true.
Plenty of Labour voters like racing, plenty like a bet, but winning money gambling on animals racing is hardly a good fit with socialism and left wing libertarianism, though it exists – and I’m arguably a pinko, moderate, centre left, example of it – is often hard to justify.
Really good post from CAS on all fronts, I’d say.
Labour will be a friend to neither racing nor the free adult choice to gamble.
The existential threat already growing under the Tories will only intensify under Labour.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"While there is something in your argument CAS, also true that the Mail and Express are foremost promoters of horror images so don’t imagine that antis are only on the left. Lack of any coherent policy on monitoring and reducing fatalities, aside from tinkering with fences, really doesn’t help. Since this requires serious scrutiny of the multimillion pound breeding industry and training methods, doubt it’s going to happen. I don’t think a Labour government represents a threat to horse racing in policy terms but the racing elite’s long reliance on its friends in the Tory cabinet makes the entire industry vulnerable to a change in government as it is now tainted with corruption and mismanagement.
Got to say I think Tonge makes some really excellent points too – cracking thread IMO.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Fair point Tonge and it is also true that the Daily Mail has a bit of a sniffy attitude towards gambling. It is one of the few issues where it has something in common with The Guardian and the BBC.
However, I still think it is broadly fair to say that a Conservative government is more likely to give racing a friendly and more sympathetic hearing than a Labour government would. By a rough calculation, two thirds of our racecourses are in Conservative held constituencies and so are all the major training centres.
While not confined to Labour, I do think hostility to the bookmaking industry and sympathy for more militant animal rights arguments is far more likely to be encountered amongst Labour supporters and activists.
But to go back to the issue of clips being uploaded. Doesn’t this make it even more important for racing to consider if it is wise to keep breeding for speed, especially from fragile horses? This development, together with poor quality racing surfaces, is potentially a ticking time bomb for racing. I am convinced it is making the breed weaker and more prone to break down. And hardly anyone is taking it seriously.
“This development, together with poor quality racing surfaces, is potentially a ticking time bomb for racing. I am convinced it is making the breed weaker and more prone to break down. And hardly anyone is taking it seriously.”
Massive 100% agreement with this.
Group 1 races being run on artificially-watered ground, “Firm” being treated like a four-letter obscenity which has no place in a Going description, is resulting in infirm horses going to stud and reproducing hundreds and thousands of potentially-infirm progeny.
Which in turn increases pressure for yet more watering until one day the word “Good” joins “Firm” as a four-letter expletive.
Anyone who looks at historical going stick readings can see ground definitions have been changing by stealth in this direction for years.
Too much inbreeding to the third and fourth remove for speed and precocity is exacerbating the problem too.
UK horse racing is slowly becoming inbred cripple racing in man-made swamps.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"“Too much inbreeding to the third and fourth remove for speed and precocity is exacerbating the problem too.”
Agree about inbreeding being a serious issue. Even Frankel is very closely inbred. Some sires are covering far too many mares. It is not healthy.
Nor is it healthy to see fragile horses that were unable to stand a full season of training packed off to stud.
Racing is completely open to the accusation that money is being put ahead of horse welfare and the wellbeing of the thoroughbred.
Clips of broken down horses are going to become more common and racing will become more difficult to defend. Put it this way, even as recently as 10 years ago I would happily tell people in work how I liked racing. Now I do not mention it, especially to young people. Not because I am ashamed of the sport – because I am not. But I am wary of getting a hostile reaction and having to go through the process of justifying the sport to someone who probably does not want to listen.
I think the anti-racing arguments will be listened to far more sympathetically by a Labour government
Probably true now as I’m not aware of a current Labour MP who’s publicly admitted to being a racing fan; but not so long ago the estimable Robin Cook certainly championed the sport, and Alex Salmond (ostensibly on the left) is also a keen follower, though with friends like him who needs enemies
And regarding gambling, if memory serves it was Gordon Brown who abolished betting tax
The more relaxed attitude towards gambling from the Blair/Brown government was not popular with a lot of Labour Party activists, who tend to view bookmakers as the sons of the devil.
I remember feeling sorry for Douglas Alexander, a dour Scottish Presbyterian, who valiantly tried to defend the proposals for a super casino on an edition of “Question Time”. His attempt to stay true to collective Cabinet responsibility was admirable up to a point. But it was obvious he was immensely uncomfortable and did not believe a word he was saying. He would have been far better off saying it was the government’s policy but he personally did not agree with it for reasons of conscience.
It was often said of the early Labour Party that it owed more to Methodism than it did to Marx. This was broadly true. A lot of Labour activists in those days were also involved with Temperance and saw it as their role to steer the working classes away from sin.
That attitude – especially towards gambling – has never entirely gone away from the party and has reasserted itself in recent years.
Yep, the paternalistic ‘saving the working classes from themselves’ ethos has always been an undercurrent in the Labour movement
I recall Gordon Brown himself appearing rather uneasy when he announced the abolition of betting tax in whatever budget speech it was. Like Douglas Alexander he too is is essentially a dour tight-arsed son-of-the-manse for whom fluttering and lubrication are the enemies of his beloved “hard-working British families”
Decent fella though, certainly in comparison with the shower who wield power now
“Racing is completely open to the accusation that money is being put ahead of horse welfare and the wellbeing of the thoroughbred.”
How is racing any different from any other business which puts profit before the welfare of individuals?
The switch to GPT ushered in a golden era, created a new generation of professional gamblers, and was instrumental in validating the betting exchange business model.
Odd that it was a Labour government that did it, tbh.
Chezza is one Labour voter who definitely isn’t a Methodist.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"“the betting exchange business model.”
You mean the one where connections who know that they won’t be trying can fleece the unsuspecting public?
Fleecing the unsuspecting public is a practice which pre-dates betting exchanges by a couple of hundred years, Gladders.
I refer to GPT being payable on exchange commission revenue – a tax based on exchange turnover would have rendered exchanges unviable.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"
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