An Apology To God

This is not a post about dogs. These are words I need to spit out of my head and I'm using this blog to vent them. I said a prayer this morning to apologize to God for the cruelty people are capable of. I'm spewing about humans, with their "superior" intelligence, subjecting animals to abuse and neglect for the sake of entertainment. Horse racing is an abomination that is supported and celebrated by the general public. I have witnessed firsthand the end of racing season, when young horses who were unsuccessful are left at racetrack barns to be euthanized. I spent a summer caring for a horse who was, at four already broken in mind and body, yet expected to race another season. I worked and lived on a breeding farm in Ocala, where the pastoral scene of mares and foals grazing and romping in green pastures was marred by the knowledge that those foals will be treated as machines the minute they are weaned. Take a close look at those mares and you will see joints that are grotesque and swollen, legs that are so crippled they have to be on pain killers the rest of their days. And they will endure the added weight of foals in their bellies every year. Without those foals, the mares aren't valuable enough to keep alive.

So, when Derby time comes around, I try to close my eyes and ears to it. I can't stomach the sight of people celebrating in their finest clothes and bonnets, with mint juleps in hand, while out on that track infant horses are running until their fragile bones break. Just think of this, horses don't run that fast unless it's in terror. Racehorses are started under saddle as yearlings, long before their bones and joints are set, way before their back muscles are capable of carrying humans. Then, they're beaten into a terrorized frenzy that makes them run. And for the sake of a multimillion dollar industry and the entertainment of viewers, a filly named Eight Belles was sacrificed last week. It makes me ashamed to be human.