Jun 16, 2024 -- 12:28AM, Somerset Sam wrote:

Just watched the programme on playback and this does the horse racing industry no favours whatsoever. The people who work in that abattoir are downright cruel to these animals.As Royal Ascot fast approaches, we'd all do well to remember what is happening to the horses who don't reach these dizzy heights.I'm beginning to have grave concerns for where this sport is actually going, caused in no small part by the registered owners and licenced trainers who choose to allow their cast offs to enter this process of cruelty and neglect, the poor horses involved are only there because they've suffered injury or don't run quick enough. It's most definitely an undignified, barbaric end for the poor animals we all claim to love.

I'd also say owners and trainers will be quick to justify where horses owned or trained by them will end up suffering this kind of treatment by saying we passed them to a dealer / agent.

The RTE programme states quite early on that for a couple of hundred quid the horse can be peacefully and humanely euthanized.

Take responsibility for your animals and don't let them go through processes we saw in this programme.

Surely thats the least owners and trainers can do for the animals they tell the world and anybody that'll listen, are so important to them. Without the animals there is no sport remember.

Jun 16, 2024 -- 8:02AM, formoftheace wrote:

Only people in racing who care are the young stable girls…..to the rest,commodities !Fact….

Sadly I'm thinking this more and more to be honest.

Yards with 150+ horses can't have the same interaction with each individual horse as a yard with 10 horses, I get that.

The cruelty and suffering seen cannot be excused in anyway however. Does it make me look at the industry differently? It probably does, and that's somebody with over 40 years of following the sport.