In flat-track horse racing everything is geared towards keeping cheating to a minimum by regulating performance enhancing substances. But what about having regulations geared towards the well-being of the horse? Age restrictions, training restrictions — heck, I don’t know what heading something like abolishing the practice of pin-firing would fall under. (But it’s a barbaric practice that is done for the benefit of humans who can’t seem to understand the words, “lay-off” as in, lay off the work this horse is doing.)

And what about Lasix? It’s a diuretic used to prevent nose bleeds during races. So it effectively dehydrates the horse before they give a supreme athletic effort. (What about kidney or liver function?) Not horse-first thinking. (Has anyone bothered to figure out why nosebleeds happen anyway? It’s not a natural condition, so something pathological must be going on.)

Horses will, for the most part, happily run themselves into the ground despite any physical discomfort and those of us who place the horse’s welfare first think that it must be prevented from doing so. In the mindset of flat-track racers, it must be encouraged to run itself very close to into the ground. As close as possible. Not horse-first thinking.

It’s so easy to pick on flat-track racing. I could easily pick on Quarter Horse futurities and shows for the same reasons. And Tennessee Walking Horse shows for all of the training abuses. And dog agility people who run their dogs too hard without understanding the physical and metabolic abuse they dish out. The point is the animal’s well-being should come first, no matter what the venue. Remember, they have no choice — humans choose for them.

“of course it was someone’s pet.”

Maybe or maybe not - there’s no way to know from the information Margaret presented here.

However, I do wish the retailer she cites had not been so evasive in his answer. The source of the horsemeat could have been former racing animals, retired broodmares, agricultural livestock no longer able to work, etc. And yes - the list of possibilities DOES include “someone’s pet”.

Far better for the retailer to be honest and say that the horses they get come from a variety of sources and leave out the “guarantee” that these were never pets. Because in all likelihood, the retailer simply cannot know whether any of them ever were or not.

Not raised for meat, but for “some other purpose.” “No longer needed.”

Sounds like, potentially, someone’s former pet. Remember that pet horses, unlike pet dogs and cats, because of their size and lifespan are quite likely to get sold on at some point, by still-caring owners who expect it to become someone else’s pet, but that doesn’t always happen. They can wind up in the hands of jobbers, and on their way to the slaughterhouse.

“when I see the number of horses that break down during races, I have to wonder if money doesn’t lead to either unfit horses being raced or some issue in breeding that is leading to these problems.”

What I dislike greatly about horseracing is that they are started WAY too young. Horse people know that a horse doesn’t really mature - physically and mentally - until it is several years old. Racing thoroughbreds are started WAY before that.

Two year old horses are raced, and raced hard - and at two years old, a horse is still growing and developing joint and skeletal structure, muscular strength, mental maturity, etc. Which means they’ve been *training* while they’re still babies - less than 2 years old. And this is a big part of the reason for the breakdowns you see on the tracks - those still-growing little bodies just aren’t ready to be pushed that hard.

And why the push to start them so young? Well, *money* of course! Those little baby Thoroughbreds are EXPENSIVE! Expensive to buy, expensive to keep, expensive to train - the sooner they begin paying back dividends (in the form of winnings) or show that they’re not going to “be a contendah” so that further investments in their racing career can be ended, the better it is for the bottom line.

And THAT is what I seriously dislike about the racing industry.

Why can’t they just let the babies grow up and get strong, and THEN start running them? (I know the answer to that, of course - $$$)

LOL! I don’t like the longer term either, but when I made the change (many years ago), “pets” were not always considered family members — dogs were often kept in the backyard and visited only at feeding time ( a practice I still see in my neighborhood, although less often now). “Pets” were owned property, not family members. The term “companion animal” conveyed to me the difference between how I felt about animals that I lived with, and the animals that were kept by people who had forgotten why they ever “got a dog”. Times have changed, and I see more family interaction and fewer “backyard dogs”. I may even start using the word “pet” again someday…