British horse racers are involved in a program to improve the condition of horses in India:
"People talk about cruelty to racehorses in England and Ireland, but they'd soon understand what cruelty really was if they came here," Culloty said. "I saw one horse who worked seven days a week with this ancient harness which had nails underneath and was cutting into open wounds on his back. He looked like he was 30 and on his last legs, but he was only a young horse.Despite the fact that animal rights activists are generally against the use of horses in entertainment and sports like racing, I do sincerely believe that most people involved with the sport very much love horses, so these quotes ring true, even if not everyone in the field is as capable of treating the horses as well as described above. For all the winners that are treated like kings, there's the losers that have much less pleasant lives, being over-raced and so on.
"In nearly all yards [in England and Ireland] horses are looked after better than the people. They do a bit of exercise every morning and they do the odd 10 minutes of work at the racecourse. Fair enough, that's hard work, but they're fit, they're trained for it and they're prepared. If they get an injury they get the very best of treatment. And, nowadays, most of them are found a good home afterwards and they're spoiled rotten. Over here, if an animal gets a career-ending injury he is not even put out of his misery. They let him go on the streets to starve and die a slow, painful death.
That said, reading the rest of the article and learning about how horses are treated in India is downright shocking. I'm glad there's an organization working to improve conditions for horses in India, but clearly their work is just a drop in the bucket, and could use the support of animal welfare organizations. AR organizations would be well-served to focus more energy on these animals, too.
Categories: horses | draft horses | animal cruelty | animal welfare
