Re: Teflon Todd (508 Views)
Posted by:
PapaChach (IP Logged)
Date: December 29, 2006 12:35PM
I agree with you. Playing the animal abuse angle will hurt racing. Everyone I know that dislikes racing - in other words, almost everyone I know - dislikes it for two reasons: they assume it is totally rigged, and they see it as animal abuse. And I'm not talking about militant vegans and PETA members. They know nothing about the issues we're discussing here, but they have a sense that the animals are poorly treated, forced to race (as a friend of mine put it when he heard or saw one of those flowery "they're born to run" type ads a few years back, "oh, so leave them alone in a field and they'll start running races against each other?"), overmedicated, etc. I've brought "newbies" to Saratoga with me, and nothing turns them off faster than watching a horse limp into the van, or disappear behind the blue curtain.
The argument that removing all the juicing would make racing more humane might makes a lot of sense to those of us that like the game, but I don't think it would resonate with the general public.