The, Born Or Not?

Upon one’s initial glance the sport of barrel racing might seem as though it is a very basic, straightforward, and even easy sport to achieve a high level of success. However, barrel racing is exactly the opposite. To be a highly skilled barrel racer it takes far more than just agility, strength, and trust from both the horse and its rider. It takes a great deal of patience to learn, be taught, and to have trust in every aspect of this sport. This is a fast paced sport that requires a great deal of dedication, skill, and motivation from every competitor, and horse, regardless of their age or skill level. Along with the above stated skills comes an extremely high level of danger, that I sadly got to witnessed first hand. Every aspect of this

“We all ride for the same purpose, to win, but its those that ride with their heart and soul and leave everything in the arena that truly win in the end, no matter the outcome of the final placing.” Its not the person on the horse’s back, or the cowboy on a bodacious bull, that wins. It’s the horse and the bull themselves that are the champions. There are misconceptions when it comes to the sport of rodeo. Despite what PETA and animal activists think, rodeo is the way of life for some people and nothing can change that. We take pride in our animals, the livestock we use, and wouldn’t dream on attentionally mistreating these wonderful creatures.

Do you think rodeo is animal cruelty? Rodeo has been around forever. Ranchers roped calves, cows, bulls, and steers to doctor them, thats where roping came from. Bronc riding came from ranchers having to break colts to ride and rope off of. This lifestyle is still going on to this day but now people think it is animal cruelty after it turned into a contest called “Rodeo.”

I remember as a little kid and now being fascinated by race horses. When I was around eight years old, my grandfather took me to a farm where they raise race horses. They were out exercising Mine That Bird and a few other horses. I thought it was so fascinating! The owner walked up to and asked if I enjoy watching them, I said very shyly,” yes sir.” He took me to the barn and let me look at all the foals and I was astonished. I got to thinking what all do they have to do to get these young foals ready to one day race? I asked Mr. Allen, and he said, “there are many things that you can do but some people don’t do the right thing and they cheat their way to victory”.

Horse Racing is very contronsival topic. Horse Racing is 39 billion dollar year industry. This is ,major sport and has a lot revenue. There are many people who go down to track and bet on these horses as entertainment day. It is filled with good times, booze, and gambling. All the thing you need to have fun. However, what happens to the horses?

Horses are stunning creatures used across the world for centuries, and even in the Roman empire. In ancient Rome, horses were mainly used for chariots, hauling supplies, and light skirmishes. The Romans’ particular favorite breeds were Andalusians, Dales Ponies, Arabians, Camargues, and Galician Ponies. Rome learned about horses from Greeks and of how to best uses the different breeds also how to efficiently train them. Horses were chosen for their stable temperament, great stamina, resistance of extreme environments, and their ability to sustain depletion of food. Horses have aided in wars, and transportation, without these amazing creatures Rome would have not been so successful

Throughout the history of American Quarter horses the main issue of the industry is the extent amount of drug usage on horses. The use of drugs on horses can help for healing and speed up the time of injury recovering, yet most of the time drugs hurt the horses. Today, this abusive action has only increased since the founding of the association. Quarter horses are jeopardized by having drugs injected in them to gain endurance and speed, but people fail to mention the risks that can occur. Injecting horses with dangerous drugs can cause heart attacks that may cause death after their race.

Selection is based on previous performance including race record; pedigree and phenotype to which play an important role when evaluating racehorses with conformation which is subjective to opinion or experience (McIlwrath, 2004). Foals in the racing industry are purchased through auction sales and stud farms and are based on their conformation, way of going and pedigree although conformation criteria differs from foal to 2-3 year old through musculoskeletal changeability. What has to be considered is the sire or dam who have produced winning progeny and has made the most prize money through races ran (O 'Mara, 2015).

“Doping and the inappropriate use of normal medications present a serious threat to the integrity and reputation of our sport, because they give athletes an unfair advantage and threaten the welfare of horses.”(FEI’s Clean Sport Campaign pg1) Federation Equestre Inerationale and several other animal welfare organizations have well-established regulations trying to create a more perfect sport. Because riding in shows is so competitive riders need to understand that showing isn’t always about winning but learning for the experience of showing.

The horse (Equus ferus caballus)[2][3] is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, Eohippus, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated, such as the endangered Przewalski's horse, a separate subspecies, and the only remaining true wild horse. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior.

Thoroughbreds have acquired a false stigma, similar to that of pitbull dogs, making them difficult to home. The thoroughbred is a flighty breed, they are designed to be fast and agile. These biological tendencies are reinforced after race training when they are taught only to gallop as fast as possible.

Tuesday November the 4th marked another Melbourne Cup, promising a day filled with champagne, crowds and colour. 1000s of spectators, staff and jockeys had lined up in the hope of cashing in on some success. Unfortunately this was not the case for the owners of Admire Rakti or Araldo, who tragically died after the race. This sudden and shocking news has re-ignited the issue of whether horse racing should be banned in Australia. Ironically this issue is driven on both sides by the same impulse: the love of the horse. Organisations including the coalition for the protection of racehorses along with animal welfare groups are concerned about the treatment and well-being of the horses. Similarly, horse owners, jockeys and staff’s main focus is the welfare of the horse.

Think about how we will look back on our cruel forms of entertainment in the future. Will we be proud of the way we treated these great animals, with abuse as neglect? Today we turn our heads away from reality and what happens behind the scenes of animal entertainment. However, we can’t turn our heads forever. Around the world, there is so much more to animal entertainment than what meets the eye. These animals have been torn away from their beautiful, natural homes and brought to a prison of concrete. In these prisons, they are beaten, starved and tortured all for our money and entertainment. These animals lives should not be taken from them for us. Our money and happiness should not be worth these animal’s lives. Circus, theme park and zoo animals all suffer from aggression towards trainers, mental disabilities and physical injuries. These animals should not have to suffer any longer.

The science behind evaluating racehorses is deciding which faults make a direct impact to the horse’s career. The requirements needed for a horse to succeed starts at the conformation of the foal/yearling. To which conformational faults are passed down from parents, however, faults may or may not have consequences to their racing career, and therefore different trainers/bloodstock agents may have different inceptions with regard to acceptable faults (TOBA, 2015).

Horse racing was popular among the ancient Greeks and in the Roman Empire. In the 12th century, Crusaders returned to England with fast Arab horses and began breeding them with English mares, producing horses with both speed and endurance. Noblemen placed bets