Topic: The Grand National

Just no!

Don't forget not to bet!

pic.twitter.com/yUyLc1zRNW

oooooooo bit risque this topic!

@kyleforrester87 not at all.

It's a national institution and hugely commercial sporting event.

The only thing 'risque' is that it's still actually allowed to go ahead. Year after year, almost unopposed while organisers sometimes make a fence shorter, or a drop shallower. Yet every year - horses break limbs and are killed.

Ya think this is bad, check out the Velke Pardubicka... makes the National look tame by comparison.

@dellyrascal I'm aware of it

I have no problem with this event at all. Horses are put down at other jumping events as well should they all be banned?

@dryrain the events don't need to be banned just the killing of otherwise healthy horses just because they can't race and make them money anymore

the injuries they kill them for are perfectly survivable most of the time

@dryrain
I would support a banning of any event that requires or allows a jockey to whip their horse and or is proven to be consistently dangerous enough to result in destroying of horses.

@FullbringIchigo
When a horse breaks a leg, it's not just an economical decision to euthanise it. Horses simply just don't recover very often from a break sustained during competition.

The composition of their bones is such that they often shatter and bend, breaks frequently break the skin, and horses really are better off standing all the time, it can really be better for the horse to end its life rather than draw out a recovery that won't happen.

It should absolutely be banned and so should the whipping of horses. No animal should be made to suffer, and certainly not for "entertainment".

A scene from The Last Jedi comes to mind...

Not that long ago, I'd have come in here with a supportive attitude towards working animals and would likely have lumped in sporting animals to that category. I'd never have agreed with killing injured animals (this specific sport makes more than enough money to fund retirement facilities for old or injured horses, and my brother had an old, rescued racing greyhound for a few years which gave me a specific perspective on a similar case) but I might've defended the other elements involved.

Two years ago, my partner and I went to a zoo. Anybody else who's ever been to a zoo should understand, and I shouldn't need to say anything further.

Sooner or later, humanity will rise above such barbarism. I hope it's sooner.