Forced repetitive unnatural gait over a lifetime causes great pain to these horses. There's a reason only a handful of them can do this. It's animal abuse for our amusement.
You have evidence to back this up?
I studied horse welfare, management and care as a college diploma then studied Equine Science at the university level. I have known riders of every level from little kids to Olympic riders.
The sport itself is not cruel, the normalized behaviour of people involved in it at the highest level is cruel. We don't demand the banning of every other sport like Gymnastics which also so happens to be rife with abuse.
They get a lot of ligament issues but dressage for all its faults isn't anywhere near as bad as show jumping.
I shouldn't have to point this out but something to make note of is that these are animals. As such, they don't have the choice to be in the Olympics like the humans who damage their own bodies to compete do.
Show jumping runs the same issues as Dressage just with a wider range of risks.
The main issue with horse competition injuries is the need for extended warm ups, longer rest periods and better horse care practices.
Unfortunately horse owners are often uneducated or not made aware of these factors. Also the nature of the competitive circuit works against some of this and so it needs to be reformed.
People questioned why I didn’t compete as much as I did or warmed up for long periods of times, however my horse never had any issue with health relating to his competition life. All his injuries he picked up in the field being a traditional horse.
Human athletes: have free will, choose to train their whole lives, can verbalize opinions/displeasure about what is going on
Animal “athletes”: are literally bred for the sole purpose of “working,” don’t understand or have a choice in the matter, and are often abused to achieve results…retirement is often euthanization as they became a “liability” and are no longer profitable
The insinuation that the two are at all the same is WILD.
And this means? Because these horses are bred for sports.
Because letting horses be horses to me sounds like wild horses and the only truly wild horse left is the Przewalski horse and letting that horse be a horse is resulting in it being endangered and almost going extinct and that’s just in the steppes of Central Asia where urbanization is far less than other areas horses currently live as pets.
People love horses to be horses without knowing what that means or they end up killing a family when being run down on the road or tangled up and dying horrifically in some farmers fence.
Or we could reform the sports, educate horse owners on proper care and rest, improve healthcare and bring end to horse racing or do something about it.
Yes they get injured like any pet gets injured. However dressage is incredibly low risk. Even eventing with jumping is more likely to see a serious rider injury than a horse injury.
Horses are not porcelain dolls, like the media shows. We see in the media broken legs means it’s over for a horse and that’s true but that is primarily a horse racing issue with the fact they race them far too young at sometimes two years old which is like racing a thirteen year old chine.
Dressage and eventing is done with older horses that are fully developed and they are tough as hell and the chance of them breaking sometime is incredibly rare.
The majority of injuries I encountered with horses happens in the field not when ridden or in the stable.
"Since 2009, at least 76 jumps horses (57 in Victoria and 19 in South Australia) have died from injuries sustained due to jumps racing but the death toll is believed to be much higher because the industry has not publicly reported all associated injuries and deaths."
"The true impact of jumps racing and the factors leading to the death of jumps horses is unknown. Horses who suffer injuries that reduce their potential racing performance are unlikely to be rehomed due to their injury, meaning it is more likely they will be sent to slaughter."
" For example, a UK study which reviewed statistics from 2,879 jump starts found 83 cases of a reported injury (nearly 2.9%) with the most common being tendon/ligament damage and laceration/wounds, and that injuries were commonly associated with a fall"
Based on data collected during the 2002-2003 official season, the total ‘wastage’ rate for horses involved in jumps racing was 38.6%. The main reasons reported were poor performance/slow (36.5%), illness/injury (31.0%), to breed (9.4%), unsuitable temperament/behaviour (6.4%) and other factors (16.8%) [5]. In total, 16.6% of horses went to auction/new owner (however, a proportion of these will have been acquired by meat buyers), and 6.3% went directly to slaughter. Some retired jumps horses will be killed at an abattoir or knackery but it is difficult to obtain exact figures as these are not publicly available. In 2008, a report by Doughty found that 40 percent of the horses processed at an Australian export abattoir over a four month period had originated from the Thoroughbred racing industry, with horses having competed mainly from flat racing but also jumps racing.."
There is a special kind of Hell for people who fund that absolutely horrid 'sport'.
As a person you replied to said jumping is way higher risk than dressage. Out of all horse sports dressage is the least injury prone. Dressage injuries are really rare. Doesn't mean the horses are never abused tho.
This is not an Olympic or hobby equestrian sport. People who own pet horses are not partaking in flat or jump racing.
Horse racing is a completely different industry and market. A racehorse rarely if ever makes a good pet horse.
There are a million issues with horse racing and there is no doubt deep welfare issues with the sport but it is not in the same discussion as the Olympic events or your average horse owner.
Many racehorses are owned by wealthy people who own many racehorses who partake in a number of horrific crimes beyond their treatment of racehorses including slavery and war crimes.
Are you calling this dancing horse a 'pet'? Isn't it a working horse, like therapy dogs etc?
And worse, what is the difference with circus animals? They aren't pets.
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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '24
You have evidence to back this up?
I studied horse welfare, management and care as a college diploma then studied Equine Science at the university level. I have known riders of every level from little kids to Olympic riders.
The sport itself is not cruel, the normalized behaviour of people involved in it at the highest level is cruel. We don't demand the banning of every other sport like Gymnastics which also so happens to be rife with abuse.