Weighing over 1000 pounds, racehorses are forced to race with its relatively tiny

ankles in size of human. Though horses are bred to gallop in field, it seems nonsense
to make them running so fast with their same kinds. Every year, there is over $1.2
billion invested in this industry by upper classes and wealthy owners. (The Jockey
Club, 2015) Since the scope of industry is broad, the success of racehorses relies
hugely upon sufficient care and support provided by both front-side and backside
workers. The backstretch workers are paid below minimum wage and do not receive
overtime payment as required by law. (Castaneda et al., 2010, 500) Oppositely, for
frontline includes owners, punters and jockeys, they receive glory, fame and money
reward within the ultimate winners circle.
Behind the veil of various cocktail and champagne, these young horses have
been trained miserably by injecting drugs in order to achieve fast speed. The fate of
racehorses is clearly divided into two-way cut: either breakdown on the track or sent
to slaughterhouse. As horses couldnt afford stressful condition of running too fast,
bones and tendons are easily damaged that subject to fatal breakdown. On the other
hand, owner wont spend extra money to deal with their career-ending injuries, thus
they simply euthanize horses as it is just an useless asset in their eyes. (PETA, 2015)
Is it natural to train a horse running in such high speed or it is a cultural
entertainment? Tracing back to the origin of horse racing, the Arabian horses were
brought back and bred with larger English mares to produce new specie with speed
and resilience. This forms the Thoroughbred. (Church, 2009) Over the ages, horse
racing played a major role in the British society as it interprets how their social world
should be. As racing arouses British strong feeling and excitement across class,
individuals with different background, religions or social statuses are mingled
together participating in the same horse racing activity. It tells the disparity of cultural
dissonance in society. Horses originally belonged to rural area, but residents were
granted the chance to watch the race in urban district. Such an interaction was
symbolized as the bridge in between urban and rural area (Huggins, 2015). Therefore,
it is proved that horse racing is a cultural entertainment by human, since all the
abilities are artificially created by human through mating different horse species, and
combing various bloodlines.
Concerning the question of whether Thoroughbred is cruel or fair and humane,
this appears to absolutely opposite answer when taking account into the opinion of
different parties.
The animal welfare group upholds the belief of treating animal fairly and
humanely. They think that animal can experience the same feeling as human do, so it
is unacceptable to cause any pain and suffering on them. This links to the issue if
people treat animal differently or the same like human. The People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA) aims at giving legal rights in equal to human. They
want to outlaw all the scientific research that has imposed great impact on animals.
(Tagliare, 2015) Thus, they choose the equality position, which gives no distinction in
moral worth between human and animals. In this way, from PETAs perspective,
horses are not inferior to human. They are living creatures who could also feel pain. It
is unfair to use it as entertainment just because of humans pleasure. People cant treat
them inhumanely like euthanize horses when they are injured and unable to race after
retirement. Unlike human, horses dont have the ability to voice out their issues and
difficulties. They should not be forced to suffer any hunger and trauma in horse
racing.
In general, the whole industry is market driven that promotes all these violent
abuses and neglect. The horse racing people sees the horse as tools for making money.

This explains why they wont feel guilty when sending those horses to slaughterhouse
after retired or injured, as they dont want to spend additional cost in catering with
some useless object. Due to the high expense of breeding horse, from personal health
care to cross track training, owners must minimize the cost in order to maximize the
return with great amount invested beforehand. The horseracing industry is highly
associated with gambling. By 1800s, there is a decline in popularity of horse racing
due to prohibition of gambling in most of the countries. The former Churchill Downs
public relations director once said, With so much money on the line, people will do
anything to make their horses run faster. (PETA, 2015) Provided that any horses that
couldnt achieve satisfy performance on the track, they would then be euthanized, like
Magic Man, whose broke both front legs in the Saratoga Race Course. (PETA, 2015)
Criticism lies on three main aspects : overbreeding of animals, mistreatment in
training and the method of dealing with unwanted sports animals.
Shall we breed the animals in the way that we want? Animals are empowered
with reproductive ability. More importantly, their willingness to perform such action
shall not be controlled or intervened by other parties. Horse riding people, in other
way, see this as their usual practice so that they could breed the quickest, enduring
species to win the races. In terms of the mistreatment in training, horses are born to
live in nature without constraint of regular training over hurdles. Thoroughbred owner
only prioritize the goal of winning races as their horses life target. Unimaginable
damage was created on Horses bodies when various artificial chemicals are injected
into their bodies. During the retirement stage, Horses should be sent to specialist if
they were found to have serious injury. They are responsible to decide if the horses
should be undergoing medical treatment or euthanasia. No decision shall be made by
the owners before the examinations performed by the specialists.
To strive for a balance between the interests of human and animal, it is
impossible to satisfy interest of all parties. With different views of individuals towards
human animal relationship, it leads to all controversies on treatment to race horses,
like euthanizing, use of drugs and artificial breeding of horses.

References
Church, C. (2009). Thoroughbred racing... sport or cruelty?. Examiner.com.
Retrieved 5 March 2015, from
http://www.examiner.com/article/thoroughbred-racing-sport-or-cruelty
Huggins, M. (2015). Horseracing and the British 1919-1939 (1st ed.).
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McManus, P., Albrecht, G., & Graham, R. (2015). The Global Horseracing
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PETA,. (2015). Horse Racing. Retrieved 6 March 2015, from
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PETA,. (2015). The Horseracing Industry: Drugs, Deception and Death.
Retrieved 6 March 2015, from http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-inentertainment/animals-used-entertainment-factsheets/horseracingindustry-drugs-deception-death/
Tagliare, D. (2015). PETA Wants Personhood for Animals, Not for Unborn
Humans. Godfather Politics. Retrieved from
http://godfatherpolitics.com/3058/peta-wants-personhood-for-animalsnot-for-unborn-humans/
The Jockey Club,. (2015). 2015 Fact Book. Retrieved from
http://www.jockeyclub.com/default.asp?section=FB&area=7