Today I
came across this plea from a respected horsewoman, who when not taking care of
the family racing stable and family, spends a lot of her time working to
improve the lot of retired race horses as well as aid in bringing attention to horses
in danger, those who attempt to profit at the expense of these off-the-track
standardbreds, and reconnect horses with their previous owners or others
connected to them. In addition to
helping raise attention to the plight of these horses, she has her collection
of rescues on her farm which she takes care of without any outside support.
Clearly she has reached a point of frustration when she wrote this opinion piece which is important for the industry to see.
I really wish that the industry would spend some time putting
effort into creating a set of guidelines and regulations when it comes to the
welfare of standardbreds.
Horsemen who actually
care about the fate of these animals are getting hit from all sides. First we
have to deal with the phone calls that tell us that a horse that we once owned
or trained (even if it was years ago) are standing in a kill pen and we must come
up with hundreds of dollars to "free" them (or else!). Then we have to deal with people who sell horses to the
Amish and worry about dealing with those people to get them back (or
else!).
Now the new thing is, the THREAT of Amishing a
horse...."pay me $3,000 more than the horse is worth or I'm selling him to
the Amish." I'm telling you, the market for extortion in this business is
going up and up and up. All you have to do is claim a horse for $4,000, keep it
for a few months (making no money with it) until it is unsound mentally and
physically (because you had no business buying it to begin with) and then tell
the previous owners to give you three times what the horse is worth or
"I'm Amishing it."
The people who do these things have no business being in the
horse business, especially if we are to protect racing for the future. The rest
of the horse world is sick of seeing the headlines with yet another one of our
horses ending up in a kill pen...and if you Amish a horse that is where it is
ultimately going to end up once it's used up and tossed away.
We cannot claim ignorance anymore, "Oh I thought it was
going to go live a good life in the country and live its life out in a lush
pasture." That DOES NOT happen.
Do you know how many of these horses would end up on meat
trucks if the Amish were taken out of the equation? NOT MANY. Because the Amish
are the pipeline. It's not race owners and trainers shipping them to these
sales, it's the Amish and it's their agents who scoop them up and ship them
there. But I must add that common decency among horseman has been degraded to
the point that I am not surprised that the horses suffer in the end, because we
can't even be fair and decent to one another.
Right now I have SIX (count it 6!) fellow horseman that are
desperately attempting to locate, buy back or prevent their horses from going
to the Amish. This is turning into a disease.
The question is, Is anyone listening? I wonder.....
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