More dead horses
July 13, 2012 | 1 Comment
As the Calgary Stampede approached, I had resolved not to write about it. I am not a fan of putting animals in harm’s way purely for the sake of spectacle, but there wasn’t much I could say that hadn’t already been said. And, anyway, I always assumed that the human participants treated the animals (outside of the events) better than your average circus animal is treated. And, seeing a picture of a tearful Chad Harden does a lot to confirm that thought.
Of course, tears or not, his horses are still dead.
On Thursday, the horses pulling Mr. Harden’s chuckwagon had a serious crash. Three of the four horses were killed, and the spotlight is once again on this controversial sport. I have yet to hear an answer to the question I posed last year, after the death of a horse participating in chuckwagon race at the Stampede, can anyone put up a defense for running chuck wagon races?
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July 16th, 2012 @ 6:03 am
It’s actually quite easy, as the Kays at the National Post have shown. Animal deaths are a common risk and occurance in horse-racing (did you see Secretariat?), dressage and overland dog racing, all sports that attract the imagination and support of our elites. If you want to go into PETA territory and ban them all on principle, fine, but zeroing in on chuckwagon races because of this kind of incident is as rational as banning deer-hunting (but not fishing, moose or bird-hunting) because of Bambi. Urban Ottawans should perhaps do more research on the culture behind it, no? This isn’t like bull or pitbull or cock-fighting where death is the objective. It’s really not even an animal cruelty issue.
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