Horseracing
Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (09:47): After being flogged around a racetrack even when injured, Black Caviar’s connections were not content with almost $8 million in winnings, so they forced her to be a breeding machine. A horse like Black Caviar would naturally live 25 to 30 years, yet she was euthanised the day before her 18th birthday, hours after she gave birth to her ninth foal in 11 years. Given that a horse’s gestation is 11 months, she essentially spent her entire so-called retirement in a cycle of constant pregnancy. Her new foal is dead now too. Horses do not just wake up with laminitis and die that day. It was reckless, it was irresponsible, it was greedy and it was downright cruel to continue her pregnancies when her diagnosis was known and when it was well documented that weight bearing worsens the condition. The racing industry pretend to be sad that Black Caviar is dead, but they are the ones who bred her to death. At the same time they are indiscriminately breeding horses you will never know about in the thousands. They are sending them to knackeries and to abattoirs. They refuse to ban the whip, the state’s most public display of animal cruelty, and would prefer to spend more money on rose gardens than retirement plans. They will not even end jumps racing as every other state in this country has done, resulting in the deadliest event in Victorian history on Sunday, killing three horses and injuring two jockeys. The industry claim to love horses – do not believe them.