Gordon Elliott

mathepac said:
What humans choose to inflict on themselves, or on each other, is very different to what we choose to inflict on other species purely for our entertainment.
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You ignore the 'encouragement' of coaches, parents, team managers, peers....

The mere presence of humans causes catastrophic injury and damage to pretty much all animal life. The only logical conclusion of a pursuit to end all animal suffering as a result of human activity is human extinction.
 
Humans have always destroyed the environments they encounter, from killing off things such as Mammoths and all the large game in Europe, most of Asia and moth of the Americas to the Maori in New Zealand and Aboriginal people in Australia who probably did more damage than any other people's in history to their environment.
There's just more of us now and we have TV.
 

In ways, we're just like many other species in that we strive to shape our environment to suit ourselves with little regard to the consequences for everything else.
 
6 months ban
I think this is fair
It is disproportionately small compared to the damage to Irish racing
But disproportionately large compared to his "moral" culpability
A certain section of the British twitteratti will of course damn it as too light, that section that has more sensitivity to violations of animal welfare than of human welfare
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
A certain section of the British twitteratti will of course damn it as too light, that section that has more sensitivity to violations of animal welfare than of human welfare
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Absolutely. I see adverts for charities which help donkeys showing them in terrible conditions but the children working in the same places are ignored.
 
No I didn't, re-read my post for clarity.

Your self-styled "logical conclusion" is arrant nonsense. Education and behaviour change are what's required.
 
Great to see that Revenue, backed by the Tax Appeals Commission agree with me by classifying horse-racing as an industry and not a sport. Page 7 today's Sunday Times
 
mathepac said:
Great to see that Revenue, backed by the Tax Appeals Commission agree with me by classifying horse-racing as an industry and not a sport. Page 7 today's Sunday Times
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Don't have an ST sub, is there an implication there of more taxation or scrutiny?
 
Brian Keegan in the Examiner in 2015 said:
On first principles, all sporting organisations and clubs are treated the same way as any other type of business, and all professional athletes and their managers are treated the same way as any other type of worker.
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odyssey06 said:
is there an implication there of more taxation or scrutiny?
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I certainly hope so and hope it leads to the withdrawal of State subsidies from the industry that is the plaything of the Ruler of Dubai, O'Leary, Desmond, Magnier, and their ilk, none of them stuck for the few bob. The State's subsidy is chump-change to them, but not to the sick, the poor, the elderly, and the homeless in Ireland. Between this and the subsidy paid to the disgraced greyhound industry, there's €100M/annum being denied the needy of this country.

The company behind Listowel racecourse is appealing a refusal by Revenue to grant it charitable status back in 2014. Listowel Race Company filed its High Court appeal last Thursday. In 2014 Revenue rejected Listowel's assertion that horse racing was an "athletic sport" and should be seen as involving two athletes, a jockey and a horse. They failed to note that the purpose of the jockey-athlete is to beat the horse-athlete in order to make it run faster. Out of love and respect for the animal of course. The TAC backed Revenue's decision noting that a race-course "does not exist for the sole purpose of promoting horseracing even if one was to regard [that] as a sport". [This paragraph heavily paraphrasing ST article published, Sunday 07/03/2021 and titled "Racecourse runs to High Court in tax relief dispute" by Colin Coyle]

In the same newspaper, Brenda Power details some of the behaviours ascribed to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum and accepted as fact in a London divorce-court last year. I'm not suggesting that anyone else associated with the Maktoums, Godolphin or the four stud farms it operates in this country would behave in a similar manner, but as a junior Brit Royal discovered to his cost and to the everlasting shame and embarrassment of his family, if you lie down with dogs, you may get up with more than fleas.

I'm not an apologist for Power or Coyle, their writing touched on topical matters of interest to me. For other views on horsey-related stuff, refer to the same publications letters page.
 
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mathepac said:
No I didn't, re-read my post for clarity.
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Fair enough, so you think beating a human is OK, just don't do it to the animals you choose to like.

mathepac said:
Your self-styled "logical conclusion" is arrant nonsense. Education and behaviour change are what's required.
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I can only assume then that you subscribe to a hierarchy of species that puts horses up towards the top, and above humans based on your earlier point.
 
I suppose the point is that humans have a choice when it comes to participation in sport whereas animals don't.
That said when it comes to humans inflicting suffering on animals sport is well down the list of causes.
 
And Horse Racing does put the horse to the fore. Horses like Arkle, Desert Orchid, Istabraq, Red Rum, Tiger Bay and Duke of Marmalade are household names. But how many know who were their trainers and jockeys? (ok, everybody probably now knows that Tiger Bay was trained by the wicked one)
Note the number of loose horses in a Grand National and ask yourself why they don't pass the post in front having ejected their 10st plus partner, incidentally with little regard of what hurt that might have caused the hapless human. Yet the glory goes about 85/10/5 to the horse/jockey/trainer.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
Note the number of loose horses in a Grand National and ask yourself why they don't pass the post in front having ejected their 10st plus partner, incidentally with little regard of what hurt that might have caused the hapless human.
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Maybe because there isn't a little fella whipping them along?
 
Purple said:
I suppose the point is that humans have a choice when it comes to participation in sport whereas animals don't.
That said when it comes to humans inflicting suffering on animals sport is well down the list of causes.
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True for the vast majority alright, though many will tell tales of being pressured into sport by pushy parents. Then you have the abuse certain 'fans' give to professional sportspeople with little or no reaction, but someone does something stupid with one of the chosen species and there are death threats.

I find the whole way people select a few species to get super excited about while ignoring far greater travesties fascinating.
 
No, that first thought seems to have sprung from an over fertile imagination, not influenced by anything I posted.

Assume whatever you like, but you're not doing a good job at putting words at my typing fingers. Again read what I wrote, not what you imaging I might have written.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
incidentally with little regard of what hurt that might have caused the hapless human.
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As professional, said hapless human has a choice about participation and is well recompensed, the horse doesn't have that choice and might get an extra feed of oats or bale of hay for being disgracefully abused for the industry adherents entertainment.
 
Leo said:
I find the whole way people select a few species to get super excited about while ignoring far greater travesties fascinating.
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But any commentary on these greater travesties in this thread about the horse-racing industry and the behaviour of one individual in particular could be deemed off-topic. Besides, I don't see that decrying one lot of well-heeled, State-sponsored, cruelly exploitative people means other iniquities go unprotested. Check my posts, I've already said where I'd prefer to see the State subsidies of the horse and greyhound industries spent - on needy humans here at home..
 
Is the horse racing industry now in terminal decline, now with the shocking revelations that 4000 Irish trained horses were shipped to Britain for slaughter after their racing careers ended. Aswell as that the stopping of horse racing and crowd attendances because of lockdown s.
I just think the end of this industry is now in sight, I notice some prominent stud farms in kildare with sheep grazing them or actually ploughed up for crop growing.
The betting did not stop because of covid but just switched to other things, maybe those people won't return to betting on horses .
 
Cows are slaughtered after they stop milking.
Why do we get all upset about animals we don't eat when we treat the animals we do eat so badly?
Pigs are more intelligent than dogs and we are aghast when dogs are mistreated but have no problem tucking into a rasher sandwich.
 
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