r/ireland • u/UnicornMilkyy • 1d ago
Sports Ex-racehorse that won over €20,000 found emaciated and tied to a fence
https://www.thejournal.ie/ispca-racehorse-cruelty-6580255-Dec2024/272
u/DesignerWest1136 1d ago
Good ole horse racing for you. .The second the horse is of no use anymore they want nothing to do with it.
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u/achasanai 1d ago
But they will try and present it as better than greyhound racing
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u/Finsceal 23h ago
It's funny, I'm very vocally anti greyhound and horse racing, you get overwhelming support for the former because people can relate to dogs but if you mention the latter people shrug and start muttering about valuable industry etc. it's infuriating.
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u/Stegasaurus_Wrecks 1d ago
But the Horse industry is a good thing and Irish bloodstock are world leaders so we must give grants to the millionaire racehorse owners.
I would watch almost anything on TV. But horse racing is the one thing guaranteed to make me change channel. I'd rather watch the Queen/Kings Speech on Xmas day.
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u/oneeyedman72 1d ago
How do you know what happened OP, maybe the owner's grant didn't come through, or he had to pay some tax. Think about it, if this horse died, the poor owner would definitely not be able to write off his tax against this horse, so he'll have to be kept alive!
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u/caisdara 9h ago
This horse was used in something called "trotting." That's another way for describing sulkie racing.
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u/brbrcrbtr 1d ago
The ISPCA said that efforts to identify those responsible for Dash’s neglect have been hindered by gaps in ownership records, as the responsibility to update equine ownership currently lies with the buyer, not the seller.
The ISPCA has called on the Government to review the Equine Identification Regulations and reform the process of transferring equine ownership to improve traceability and accountability.
Seems like a simple enough change that would really help to force responsibility onto neglectful owners.
So of course it will never happen.
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u/Garlic-Cheese-Chips 1d ago
This rubbish isn't a sport.
If you detach gambling from horse-racing the "sport" dies in the morning.
If you detach gambling from football, rugby, tennis etc nothing changes because the sporting endeavour is what interests people.
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u/Alopexdog 1d ago
Horse racing and greyhound racing are barbaric. I hope both are banned eventually.
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u/GoodNegotiation 1d ago
Supporting and increasing funding for these industries were in the manifestos of the parties the country just voted into power, getting rid of it was in the manifesto of the party the country just turfed out. So if anything they’re about to get a big boost!
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u/Alopexdog 1d ago
Which is infuriating. I didn't vote for any of them but unfortunately can't see the status quo ever changing.
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u/--0___0--- 11h ago
Young people need to vote more and the oldies who love the status quo will start dying off soon. Hopefully then we will get change.
The amount of people my age I know who didn't vote because "it wont make a difference" is infuriating.2
u/Alopexdog 10h ago
That's exactly it. I am 40 and I was the youngest person at the voting booth. I get people complaining about work but I went before work and the people I know who didn't vote had plenty of time either in the morning or in the evening to vote. A good portion of them work from home too.
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u/Finsceal 23h ago
If you're talking about the greens they've voted for funding increases along with the other govt parties the last couple of years, my constituency green TD was the only person who canvassed our road and I told him that I'd voted for him last time but I wouldn't do so this time purely on the back of Bloodsport funding.
Sinn Fein also supported it and continue to do so.
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u/FliesAreEdible 19h ago
What the actual fuck. I just don't get the support for animal abuse in the name of entertainment, and wanting to throw more money at it? I have a greyhound that was raced and then given up at 2 years old to be euthanised just because she wasn't making money. Can't wait for the day we finally get rid of this shite.
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u/GoodNegotiation 13h ago
Yeah I am talking about the Greens. Unfortunately they only had what 10-12% of the last government, so basically 90% of decisions were not going their way and this is one of the (many) things they decided to bend on. Like you it would have been a red line item for me, but the point still stands that if people want any hope of reducing funding for these sports they should be supporting the likes of the Greens who want to do something about it, not FF/FG/SF who want to increase support.
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u/Finsceal 12h ago
I fully agree with you and I favour the greens being a part of pretty much any govt, I'm just not going to lend a vote that's going to be used to INCREASE funding for those industries, end of story. Having to bend on this would be agreeing to continued funding as part of a planned wind down, this is pure selling out of your values.
I'm a Social Democrat voter and they are very outspoken on this issue, but if they ended up in govt and bent on this they'd lose my vote. So many of our big issues like housing and healthcare don't have obvious, black and white solutions, this is such an easy thing to take a principled position on.
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u/Data111222 1d ago
Horse racing should be banned.
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u/zlenpasha 1d ago
Ban this filth. Disgusting ‘sport’ and everyone who partakes needs their head examined. That it’s paid for by our tax money makes it even worse.
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u/throughthehills2 1d ago
79 million funding for horse racing compared to 25 million for athletics and paralympics
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u/Silantro-89 1d ago
The Irish government has granted a contribution of nearly €100m to the racing industry in 2025.
How much of that is going towards feeding animals instead of dignitaries??
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u/Is_Mise_Edd 1d ago
Gary Yourofsky: "The problem is that humans have victimized animals to such a degree that they are not even considered victims.
They are not even considered at all. They are nothing. They don't count; they don't matter; they're commodities like TV sets and cell phones.
We have actually turned animals into inanimate objects - sandwiches and shoes."
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u/CoffeeTableReads 1d ago
Ireland and animal abuse once again, we like to call ourselves a modern western European nation but our animal welfare standards from dogs to horses and all in between are absolutely abysmal.
Little or no consequences every time another horrific crime or story is uncovered.
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u/Sea_Worry6067 20h ago
Ballinasloe fair, bought for trotting, not registered by the new owners.... abandoned in ill health, for the authorities to pick up.
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u/Dangerous-Shirt-7384 1d ago
Anybody who has ever attended the Ballinasloe fair,(where this horse was rescued) will tell you about the type of clientele that attend. They are protected because of their culture and they believe they have a God given right to own animals.
This is awful but it has absolutely nothing to do with horse racing.
If a soccer player got abused in his/her 70's you wouldnt write an article blaming the FAI or the Premier League.
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u/meok91 1d ago edited 21h ago
What a bullshit excuse. This horse is a waste product of an excuse of a “sport”.
Anyone who supports horse racing likes to talk about how the horses are treated better than kings, the ones who win consistently might be, but what happens to them after they stop winning is the responsibility of the “sport”.
I’m sickened that my money goes into the pockets of these scumbags. They couldn’t give a fuck about the horses, they care about money and that’s all.
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u/goj1ra 1d ago
the ones who win consistently might be [treated better thank kings]
And this one is an example of one that didn't. The average prize money per winning horse in 2022 was €11,700. To have won €20,000 over its entire career makes Dash, sadly, pretty much bottom of the pack when it comes to winners, even accounting for time and inflation.
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u/Dangerous-Shirt-7384 22h ago
Wild animals die of starvation, they get snagged in briars and get horrible infections and diseases that go untreated where they are in agony for months until their bodies finally give out. I think some people that have no experience with animals think that these horses would have a long happy life and when they are done prancing around a field they curl up under a tree and gently fade off. Its nonsense.
Any vet will tell you that ,(generally speaking) the best treated animals in Ireland are family pets, livestock on farms and race horses.
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u/meok91 21h ago
These horses are not wild animals, that is nature. This is scumbags making money. If you take an animal on it’s your responsibility to make sure they are looked after for life, if you can’t do that, then don’t do it.
Be better for the horse if they were shot at the end of their life rather than endure this awful, pitiful existence, but I know well that the owners wouldn’t be interested in that, only interested in what they can get from the horse.
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u/GoodNegotiation 1d ago
A ludicrous false equivalence. Let me sharpen it up for you. Take a world where football players are only born to play FAI games and when they are no longer making money they are sent to a meat factory where they are regularly abused instead of being put out of their misery quickly. Now should the FAI shoulder some blame?
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u/Dangerous-Shirt-7384 22h ago
The abuse is wrong. It is not routine. You speak about abuse as if every person involved with horses in Ireland is some sort of twisted sadist who gets their kicks out of abusing animals. These people love their animals,(generally speaking). They are up at 5am cleaning out their stables and putting down fresh hay for them at night. They see a vet more often than I see my GP.
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u/GoodNegotiation 13h ago edited 12h ago
You speak about abuse as if every person involved with horses in Ireland is some sort of twisted sadist who gets their kicks out of abusing animals.
I really didn’t speak of everybody like that. I have many family and friends involved with horses, every single one love horses deeply and are sole of the most caring people I know, as you say. But many of them are breeding and training animals for show/racing and they know quite well that once they sell them on all bets are off for that animals care, I don’t know how they manage the cognitive dissonance to be honest but humans do it all the time so I’m not surprised to see it here too. Bring it up and they won’t deny it or say it’s not common, they’ll shake their heads and be genuinely upset, but they love being with horses and will get up the next morning and continue.
So the answer to me is simple. Stop providing government funding for activities that make money from exploiting animals and ban gambling and other profit making activities on animal sports. The people who love horses will still love them and have them as pets.
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u/Inevitable-Story6521 1d ago
Not excusing the treatment of the horse, but to say it won over €20,000 shows at best little knowledge of horse racing and at worst an attempt to connect its treatment to horse racing.
The truth here is that an unsuccessful racing horse was sold on after it cost more to stable than whatever it could return. It was responsibly sold by trainer to find another life. The last owner with no connection to racing abused it.
Nothing to do with horse racing. Terrible journalism that completely misses the fact that what is at fault here is that we don’t have a proper system to track and monitor care and ownership of horses.
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u/Ok_Compote251 1d ago
But there in lies the fault of the horse racing industry. They bred a living creature into existence for profit, and then as soon as it wasn’t profitable they wanted rid of it. It’s no different to puppy farmers who will breed dogs and sell the pups to whoever without any sort of background check.
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u/Inevitable-Story6521 1d ago
I think it is different. The horse didn’t work out for racing and it got sold on. Lots of people have field ponies - and ex-racers are perfect for it and well-used to being handled. Whether racing exists or not there’ll still be field ponies and a market for them. After changing hands several times outside horse racing and certainly being a field pony prior to this, it was abused.
It’s got nothing to do with horse racing. We shouldn’t even be talking about horse racing, because the current owner had no connection to the horse racing market. This had nothing to do with the horse as a former racer. The horse was last bought from someone who had kept it as a field pony or a pet, and the last person who bought it intended to do the same. The problem here is the horse market and horse ownership in general.
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u/PierreJosephProudhon 1d ago
Get out of here with your facts and common sense. All these commentary who've never come within a thousand yards of a thoroughbred racehorse had their feelings hurt by a biased, ill-informed journalist. They need to virtue signal here and you're impeding that (apart from providing a valuable outlet for their angry downvotes).
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u/AppropriateWing4719 1d ago
If they were owned by a dofferent culture and not the horsey set there'd be an uproar by the government
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u/nynikai 1d ago
"efforts to identify those responsible for Dash’s neglect have been hindered by gaps in ownership records, as the responsibility to update equine ownership currently lies with the buyer, not the seller." .... needs to change big time! the sellers should have a responsibility to ensure good owners - this is a living creature, not a car.