A National Disgrace?

[endlessrarities]

Here's a first. I'm cross-posting this from Dreamwidth. But never fear, folks, my LJ friends will definitely come first!

I managed nineteen miles on the bike this morning, which means that at last I'm clawing back some fitness. We were supposed to do the whole run without a cafe stop, but after fourteen miles, I went on strike. It was a fortuitous decision! They were serving the most delicious chocolate and beetroot cupcakes at our usual cafe, which of course I felt compelled to sample.

I'll stick to the sporting theme for this post...

This weekend sees the running of two historic sporting events which are renowned for being gruelling tests of courage and endurance for the athletes involved. One forms an integral part of the horse-racing calender, the other is in cycling.

The Grand National is the one that most people have heard about: an arduous National Hunt race which arguably forms the highlight of the NH year. The other event is Paris-Roubaix, commonly dubbed 'The Hell of The North', which takes the field over 259km (around 160 miles) of cobbled tracks and gruesome climbs in the north of France.

As a child, I used to watch the National religiously. Then one year I backed a horse called Alverton. He fell at a fence, and died. And suddenly, the casualties mattered to me. Instead of looking forward to the National, I dreaded the day, in case another horse suffered an unnecessary end in the name of sport, like Alverton did, all those years ago.

Two horses died at Aintree yesterday. They broke their necks. There's much twittering from the commentators, of course. 'It's a tragedy', etc. etc. But I don't think any of the common or garden punters give a toss about what happens to the horses that compete. If they did, a lot more questions would be asked of the horse-racing industry, full-stop. Why, just a few weeks back, the BBC came out with a horrific news item detailing the impact of the recession on the bloodstock industry in Ireland. A total of 4618 healthy thoroughbreds were sent to slaughter there last year, because their owners couldn't afford to keep them in the face of the economic downturn.

Those interviewed shrugged their shoulders and said that horses should be viewed the same way as any other form of livestock. If there's no use for them, they must be destroyed. But I'm a horse-lover. I can't condone this attitude. And that's why no amount of emotive trailers on BBC or enthusing by the sports journalist will entice me to watch That Race. The price in horses' lives is too high.

That's why I'm happy to have traded in the National for Paris-Roubaix. Make no mistake: this race is HARD! I've witnessed top professional cyclists from Spain and the Basque country mincing their way over the cobbles like nervous grannies navigating ice-covered pavements on their shopping bikes. When it rains, the going's so slippery they can hardly stay upright. Cyclists get injured, sometimes quite horribly. Those who make it to the end come back physically and mentally shattered, their features caked with mud or dust, depending on the weather conditions.

It's not very nice, to see these noble athletes scattered like ninepins across the tarmac. But as far as I'm concerned, there's one major difference which makes this a sporting event worth supporting: unlike the horses, the cyclists get a choice in the matter...

Comments

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hate to hear of horses in horrid accidents or being put down for stupid reasons.

So I'm trying to add people to my Dreamwidth account. Are you named the same over there?

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

I don't watch the Grand National and won't join in the sweepstake at work. The casualty rate in that race is unacceptably high.

Yet I do love to watch the cross-country in one-day eventing, and I accept that horses will occasionally get injured or even killed in that sport... But watching them fly over the fences with their ears pricked, you can see it's what they were bred for and what they love to do.

So I'm inconsistent, I suppose.

[bellakara.livejournal.com]

It's a national disgrace that makes money, which is why nothing will be done about it. I despise the attitude that people can make money out of horses and then when the poor animals have outlived their economic usefulness, they're killed. They deserve a decent retirement.