Barbero
Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 6:27 pm
I know there's a few horse people on this board. I didn't see the Preakness yesterday because I was working but a woman wearing horse racing regalia came by the booth at one point late morning.
Later that evening I got home and read about Barbero's breakdown. Once, I read an article on the Palio in Siena and saw a picture of a young horse with a fracture like the article described; that instantly came to mind. The leg swinging loose, the look of pure screaming agony on the colt's face. I can't even begin to imagine the pain. When I saw the pictures on Yahoo!News today, I just got sick. That nausea continues through to today and I keep offering prayers for Epona to grant that beautiful colt Her favour and let him survive.
Alongside the sorrow and worry is the ever-present RAGE that I feel towards horse racing in America. I don't want to abolish it but we need change and need it NOW. In Ireland and England, they don't back the horses until they're three and oftentimes the horses in big stakes races are six, seven and eight years old. Here, they slap a saddle on the kids' backs when they're <i>barely</i> yearlings. The three-year-olds in the Triple Crown are the functional equivalents of ten-year-old children in Olympic-level competition. When my horse was three, he was trotting circles on the longeline. Time enough for 18-foot pole vaults in three or four years when his joints are grown together and he's muscled up and balanced enough.
This society is so fast fast fast. Everyone wants everything five seconds ago and damn the consequences. If the Jockey Club and the Triple Crown were limited to physically-mature horses — ages six and up — we'd see a lot less death and suffering. Race horses should be an investment, not a commodity.
Are we America in the 21st Century or are we just Rome in the first century BCE? The only difference between modern American racing and chariot races in the Circvs Maximvs is that when the horses go down, people cry instead of cheer and salivate.
Horse racing is in dire need of modernization and this is the best and latest proof of that.
Later that evening I got home and read about Barbero's breakdown. Once, I read an article on the Palio in Siena and saw a picture of a young horse with a fracture like the article described; that instantly came to mind. The leg swinging loose, the look of pure screaming agony on the colt's face. I can't even begin to imagine the pain. When I saw the pictures on Yahoo!News today, I just got sick. That nausea continues through to today and I keep offering prayers for Epona to grant that beautiful colt Her favour and let him survive.
Alongside the sorrow and worry is the ever-present RAGE that I feel towards horse racing in America. I don't want to abolish it but we need change and need it NOW. In Ireland and England, they don't back the horses until they're three and oftentimes the horses in big stakes races are six, seven and eight years old. Here, they slap a saddle on the kids' backs when they're <i>barely</i> yearlings. The three-year-olds in the Triple Crown are the functional equivalents of ten-year-old children in Olympic-level competition. When my horse was three, he was trotting circles on the longeline. Time enough for 18-foot pole vaults in three or four years when his joints are grown together and he's muscled up and balanced enough.
This society is so fast fast fast. Everyone wants everything five seconds ago and damn the consequences. If the Jockey Club and the Triple Crown were limited to physically-mature horses — ages six and up — we'd see a lot less death and suffering. Race horses should be an investment, not a commodity.
Are we America in the 21st Century or are we just Rome in the first century BCE? The only difference between modern American racing and chariot races in the Circvs Maximvs is that when the horses go down, people cry instead of cheer and salivate.
Horse racing is in dire need of modernization and this is the best and latest proof of that.