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Good grief. Never in a million years would I have believed this. (Apart from the negative labour vote  :biggrin: )<br> <br>UK Independence Party 20<br> Liberal Democrat 8<br>Conservative 8<br> Green 9<br>Labour -11
. Comparing vegetarians to Hitler just shouldn’t be done.<br>
But Kotkijet – surely Hitler was the most infamous vegetarian of  all time?
Some random points:
1. I know nobody who hunts for the pleasure of seeing a fox killed. To most huntsmen/women, the death of the fox, if it happens, is almost an incidental. Certainly when I hunted, the thrill lay  in facing the challenge (and sometimes the sheer terror) of galloping over hill and dale and jumping big fences along a completely unpredictable route dictated by the fox. Horses loved it. The herd instinct could turn the most timid horse into a warhorse for the day. If you were as brave as your horse, you kept up with hounds. If you wimped out at a big hedge you took the long safe route and lost them. It was and is an adrenaline sport like no other. At the same time you have the privilege of being allowed to ride through England’s most glorious countryside and see it from a perspective that roads and cars will never allow.  It is a deeply satisfying and exhilarating experience, whether or not a fox is killed at  the end of it. Foxes do need controlling but that is not the reason most followers hunt. It is however the reason that many landowners allow hunts over their land.
2. To say that drag-hunting can be a satisfactory substitute for fox-hunting ignores two vital points. <br>a. The enjoyment of hunting is largely the unpredictability of it. The fox does not choose a route which is safe for horse and rider to follow. It is a wild being, pitting its wits against other wild beings i.e. hounds (it is not running away from the horses as people often assume). It is the elemental nature of this battle of wits (which the fox in at least two out of three cases wins) which is at the heart of hunting. <br>b. Farmers permit hunts over their land because the odds are they will NOT cross their land on any particular day. The path of the hunt is at the whim of the fox. If, in contrast, a draghunt rang  up a farmer and said ‘Can we drag an artificial  trail through your sugarbeet / winter wheat/ sheep pastures/ tomorrow  and over two post and rail fences and and follow it with a pack of hounds and fifty or sixty mounted followers  who will try to jump your fences but will almost certainly break them in several places what do you think their answer would be? Farmers in most areas will not permit drag hunts because of the certainty, as opposed to the possibility ,of damage to crops and fences.
3. On a different point, I think the idea that our meat animals meet a humane death displays a certain ostrich like attitude to the facts as laid bare by numerous secretly filmed documentaries. If you want to see sadism and blood lust I suggest you go undercover in a slaughterhouse for a week. Unpleasant jobs tend to attract unpleasant personalities and all too often the people drawn to this occupation ensure that an animal’s last hours are anything but humane. Two friends who are vets have witnessed this at first hand and as a result anything killed off our own farm goes to a small local slaughterhouse where we know the owners and the standards that are met. Don’t assume that just because we live in the country we are barbaric and care nothing for animal welfare. Perhaps we just have a realistic view of what welfare really is.
Ian. My granddad was a coal miner in South Wales after growing up as a Barnardo’s boy He died of lung cancer brought on by his work. I grew up in a mining community and probably had more real understanding and sympathy for their cause than most. Don’t tar me with any brush Ian. I am not some stereotypical ‘toff’. Neither is anyone else I know who supports the hunting cause. I am not part of an easily defined group. Life is not as black and white as you would apparently like it to be.
I have just spent an hour reading this thread from start to finish and I have a sense of deja vu. I’ve participated in the fox-hunting argument more times than I care to remember over the years and can not recall a single instance of anyone changing sides during the debate no matter how well (or badly) reasoned the arguments on either side. In many respects the fox hunting issue is a pale reflection of more important sectarian and religious divisons in the world today. Once people feel their arguments are not being heard and they are fighting for survival against a hostile enemy, negotiation ceases and the scenario is set for violence and civil disobedience. Whatever Ian says, democracy is not about the oppression of the minority by the majority.<br>Do not underestimate the strength of feeling involved. To many rural people, the urban dwellers, who buy their meat sanitised and plasticised and would poison invading rats while ‘Disneyfying’ foxes, are now an alien nation. Civil disobedience defeated the poll tax. It will be interesting to see what it does for fox-hunting.
There is of course a corollary to this question, which is: ‘Can a winning bet ever be a bad bet?’  :yes:<br>Take the case of the first ever racecourse bet placed by  a son/daughter whose feet have been hitherto firmly  plodding along the respectable path to academic achievement and a sensible career.  When their horse passes the  lollipop stick in front,  it’s uh-oh time :no:
16.16.16<br> :bounce:
No. Intuition wrong again. <br>:( <br>(I hope you appreciate I’m only posting this to let you glean the glory which is so rightly yours gamble)<br>
(Edited by turtle at 11:49 pm on May 9, 2004)
Quote: from runandskip on 5:52 pm on May 7, 2004[br]i still stand by what i said… if we want young people  to get hooked on watching racing then have horses with theses unattractive arabic names wont help. ÂÂÂ
<br>Unattractive to whom exactly?  Personally,  I find names such as Nashwan, Unfuwain, Erhhab  and Muhtarram,  rather mellifluous, certainly compared with the  spate of ‘Sharon’s Lady’ and ‘Kevin’s Lad’  type English names that appear each year.
Just received this in the post with a compliments slip from Piers Morgan.<br> To understand is to forgive.
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(Edited by turtle at 8:22 pm on May 5, 2004)
Have you ever seen our own dear Queenie jumping up and down and punching the air when a horse of hers wins, Golden Cygnet? :armbounce:<br>Maybe it’s something to do with maintaining a conventional ‘royal’ dignity, rather than a congenital arabic trait.
As for the name thing. Quite agree.  Croeso Croeso, for instance. What sort of meaningless name is that? ;)
(Edited by turtle at 11:29 am on May 5, 2004)
Promises, promises.
As this thread is now, by order of the sheep, officially dead :sad:<br> I think an epitaph is in order.
<br>The Hooves of the Horses<br>by Will H Ogilvie
The hooves of the horses – O’ Witching and Sweet.<br>is the music earth steals from the iron-shod feet;<br>No whisper of lover, no trilling of bird, <br>Can stir me as hoofs of the horses have stirred.
They spurn disappointment and trample dispair,<br>and drown with their drum beats the challenge of care,<br>With scarlet and silk for their banners above,<br>they are swifter than Fortune and sweeter than love.
On the wings of the morning they gather and fly, <br>In the hush of the night-time I hear them go by – <br>The horses of memory thundering through<br>With flashing white fetlocks all wet with the dew.
When you lay me to slumber no spot you can choose,<br>but will ring to the rhythm of galloping shoes,<br>and under the daisies no grave be so deep<br>but the hooves of the horses shall sound in my sleep.<br>
Daylight :soccer:
I believe Robbgomm is an acned student, frittering lecture time on the internet, while simultaneously risking taxpayers’ money on slow horses in a most reprehensible fashion.
( :sing: Daylight.<br>Da–aa-ay-ay light.<br>Daylight come and send us all home…)
<br>((I know that’s been done already, but some of us are new here.))<br>
Quote: from Daylight on 11:04 am on April 30, 2004[br]Zorro,
The only time they end prematurely is when it turns into a childish slanging match which is rare these days.<br>
I think it might still be arranged though, if only for humane reasons.<br>Who’ll go first?
