Read this if you DARE!

[Joe Bloggs]

I don't excuse the strategic headline.......this was written by a person that is maybe known to a lot of you.......it relates to the racing industries dirty little secret, or not so secret as Laura will do what it takes [God bless her] to stop the carnage.

Until racing unites to create good positive outcomes for our four legged friends when their racing lives come to an end, then the industry needs to be prepared for the outcry. Racing HQ takes a lot of money from the prize money disbursements however it is NOT going to the correct people, it's not doing it's fucking job.....that money, Australia boasts huge prize money, in some cases ludicrous money, it needs to be cut and better grants to sanctioned and accredited organisations so they can do whats needed in their re-homing programs.

Am I angry, you betcha booties I am, so I'm sharing this story, I urge any of you with a conscience to do same and I thank you in advance.

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Laura Cheshire

What a gelatishow. 

Thankfully one that worked out well for the horse. 

On Friday afternoon a horse came up on the Laidley (Q/land) sales page. He was Brave Nick. 

This horse was last raced in mid October, and since then had a tendon injury. 

Upon speaking to one of his jockeys who described him as one of the nicest horses she’s ridden, then speaking to his trainer who wasn’t even aware he’d been sent to the sales, we can see there is a problem here. 

This horse was sent home for a spell and his owner decided that instead of putting the effort into rehabbing an injury, she would send him to a sale yard pen instead. 

Apparently thinking he would just find a nice home. 

I spoke with the owner and said while this can happen, it’s not a likely outcome. 

So many horses sent to sale that are in the pens get sent to slaughter. Horses with injuries have an even lesser chance of getting a save. 

The owner agreed to pull him out of the sale and surrender to us at SAHA. 

Then the sale manager rang me and said no. The horse must go through. 

 Weird as I’m pretty sure an an owner owns a horse up until sale? But I may be wrong. 

Thankfully a young girl on my Facebook met up with me at the sales and we talked about him. She decided to bid on him and said she was capable of rehabbing his leg. 

I literally drove in with a friend and a float to pick him up as he was meant to be pulled out of the sale. 

I think it is beyond ridiculous that we should PAY to take a broken down horse when there are so many free surrenders waiting for help. 

And here lies the problem. Firstly, isn’t there a rule that an owner has to make two attempts to rehome a horse before it goes to a public sale or slaughter. Or is it on the trainer? How does it work though if the trainer sends a horse home to spell and the owner decides to just sale yard it? Owners aren’t licenced. 

So they don’t get fined. Yet a trainer cannot govern an owner to not send a horse to sale or slaughter. So WHAT is the solution. 

I’ll tell you. (This won’t fix the problem with owners wiping their hands of horses. This is a bigger problem that I still don’t know how to tackle.)

We need more money from the welfare fund put into helping these horses. More money used to rehab the broken down. Or at worst give them a kinder ending than a slaughterhouse kill pen. Trust me when I say it’s not the same as ‘putting one to sleep.’ It’s strange people refer to it as the same. 

A horse walks through a chute into a kill pen. Or kill box. Same same. They get (if they’re lucky and it hits the right spot) a captive bolt to the head to put them out. Then they get their throat slit to bleed them out. This makes their meat taste nicer. (Apparently) For the overseas buyers that have horse meat in their diets. 

The issue is a captive bolt is used to render the horse unconscious. Unfortunately when they move their head as horses often do, the bolt doesn’t work like it should. It seems from prior videos seen, that this isn’t really worried about and the horse will have its throat slit anyway. I mean, it dies right. The end result that they’re after. And this is what matters at their end. Horse welfare doesn’t rate highly in a slaughterhouse. 

There is also the issue of the next horse and the next horse and the many after that on the day that have the smell of blood and death thick in the air. Anyone who knows horses knows how quickly they pick up on things. So many of these horses don’t want to walk through the chute towards the smell of death. 

Sadly this is where they can get hit with pipe or an electric cow prod to get them moving. This makes me sick. Forced to walk to their death, going against every part of their being telling them not to. 

What a disgrace. With so many anti racing groups pushing to end things all together, we need to do the best we can to keep our horses out of kill pens. The money is in the industry. Why can’t it get used every year to help more of these horses that are falling through the cracks. We have around 50 Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds currently in care at our rescue. Plus the rest which are other breeds or part breeds. Racing bred horses still outweigh everything else in our numbers. 

We are flat fitting anymore horses in. 

We don’t have the funds and we don’t have the manpower. We don’t have the funds to PAY more staff. 

But we need to bring on more staff to manage the number of horses we have and to get them fit to rehome. 

We need help. These horses need help. And I think the racing industry needs to stand up and remember who the main player in this game is. The horses. 

I’m thankful someone came in and gave this horse a save. 

But without exposure of him this may not have happened. I wring my hands so often when sales are on. It gives me anxiety to know more of our horses are being thrown away.

Houston, we still have a problem. And we need to keep pushing to get it fixed as best we can. 

Welcome to share.

[Chief Stipe]

I suggest you don't take up dry stock farming Joe!

[Joe Bloggs]

Chief, as I stated somewhere on this site sometime ago, we [Mrs Bloggs and I] owned and operated a safari and travel company in Africa, we are used to animal death, raw and vicious, we did NOT support hunting safari's with guns, we did with Cameras.......we witnessed some huge obese Americans rejoice when shooting a defenceless big cat, and numerous Gemsbok, and believe a few All Blacks were guilty of that low act also, the correlation is such that anyone IMO that perpetrates pain and anguish to an animal with the purpose of killing it is a low life, a bottom feeder.

The slaughter house is home to some very ordinary humans, and I use that term loosely.....humans,  not all, it takes a special type to slit an animals throat even after stunning, and where the line is drawn is at our lovely horses.

Not all horses can be re-homed, those that are vicious, unridable, carrying long term and painful injuries etc, need to be euthanised humanely, but anyone that condones a slaughterhouse death for our noble steeds is a C--T......and I stand by what I say.

I think below your arrogant persona Chief there must be a decent bloke trying to escape, if I can lend a hand I have a cake and a file....meet you on the outside mate.