RE: More Equine Deaths... ... ...how MANY do we need?

Hannah Wynne Richards — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 09:43:41 GMT

The % death toll is appalling. If this high a % of jockeys were killed, the "sport" would have been banned years ago. It's not only the deaths on the course, it's also the deaths from pulmonary haemorrhages which occur out of sight in the stables. A further problem is what happens to the failures - veru few leisure riders can cope with a thoroughbred, so many end up slaughtered.

Admittedly, racehorses lead pampered lives when compared to the urban ponies kept on waste ground in Swansea, or the feral hill ponies which fend for themselves, with the foals rounded up, and mainly sent for slaughter every autumn.

However, the existence of a much greater evil is not an excuse for tolerating a lesser one. At least 2 of these poor dead horses didn't fall, but were pulled up, and subsequently killed. To me, that strongly indicates that they've been over raced. That problem could be eliminated if the automatic penalty for a jockey whose horse suffers any exhaustion associated damage is a life-time ban. The penalty for trying too hard has to be so much worse than the penalty for not trying, that no-one would ever be daft enough to risk it.

Wynne