The "Death Knell" of Jumps Racing is welcomed by animal activists

Sat, 2009-11-28 08:40 by nimby

Jumps racing in Victoria will cease at the end of 2010 but key stakeholders say they will fight the decision announced on Friday by Racing Victoria Ltd.
The "death knell" of jumps racing in Victoria will mean a reprieve for horses from the ugly public deaths 10 have had on the race track this year.

In 2008, 12 horses died during hurdle and steeplechase races.

The fact that some will be condemned to the knackers if the "sport" is banned shows just how little the lives of the horses are valued, nothing but meat, outside the industry. It is a reflection of the exploitation of these fine and hard-working animals, and how little the owners, trainers and jockeys bond with them.

History or tradition do not justify animal cruelty or suffering. It is time horses were treated and respected for their intrinsic value and any horses past their "use by" date should be re-homed, not slaughtered, while still healthy and in their prime.

Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses yesterday welcomed Racing Victoria's decision. The group has also offered to find loving homes for all soon-to-be retired jumps horses to save them from being destroyed.

THE decision to end jumps racing in Victoria at the end of the 2010 season struck a blow in many regional communities around the state, but none more than in Warrnambool. Their Grand Annual Steeplechase carnival has been the mainstay of the local economy for decades. A $1 million for a transition and marketing fund is aimed at helping the Warrnambool Racing Club convert and promote the May carnival to a flat race meeting. Sincere concern for the horses' welfare can't compete with money and "tradition"!

Jumps racing needs to be shelved into our dark history, along with whaling and sealing.

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Vivienne (not verified)

Thu, 2009-12-03 08:42

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Good reason not to vote for Liberals in Victoria

"If elected to government in November 2010, the Liberal Nationals Coalition will work with Racing Victoria to reinstate jumps racing and to rebuild racing across country Victoria".
“We want jumps racing to continue, the May Racing Carnival to continue with the economic and job flow-ons to continue to Warrnambool,” Dr Napthine said. “When Warrnambool is losing hundreds of jobs and $20 million a year in income because changes are being made by an agency established by the Victorian Government through parliament, I believe the State Government has a responsibility to work with the city to develop a strategy for economic opportunities that will create jobs and income.”

DENIS NAPTHINE, Shadow Minister for Racing, Shadow Minister for Regional Cities

Interesting that Denis Napthine was a vet before entering politics! Vets also work for the live export trade, support puppy mills and factory farming. It is tiresome to hear the same old arguments to exploit and kill animals and destroy environments - "jobs", "income" and "economics"!

Good reason to not vote for Liberals in the next Victorian elections!

James Sinnamon

Thu, 2009-12-03 09:18

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Disgust at Labor must not blind us to faults of Libs and Nats

Thanks, Vivienne. It's important that we are honest about not not only the Labor Government, but the alternatives. Whilst my own inclination has been to always put Labor ahead of the Liberal and National Parties on my preferential ballot paper (that is, after having voted 1, 2, 3, ... for Independents, Greens, etc.), the experience of the thoroughly despotic and incompetent Queensland Labor Government as well as the seemingly principled stances of the Liberal National Party Opposition in State Parliemant in support of democratic principles, is causing me to rethink that. In Victoria, it may still prove to be the case that the Liberal National Opposition could prove to be even worse than the already unbelievably awful Brumby Labor Government. Whatever choice, if any, candobetter eventually advocates on election day, it is critical that we be strictly honest about both of the two major alternatives as Vivienne has been. We should not be so blinded by our disgust at the ruling Labor Governments as to excuse the grave shortcomings of the opposition parties. This certainly happened in the 2009 state elections, when the Save the Mary River coalition openly attacked the Greens with at least one for not explicitly recommending that their supporters preference the Liberal National Party (the Queensland combination of the former state Liberal and National parties) over Labor. I consider this stance of the Save the Mary River coalition to have been harmful to democracy and probably their own cause, (although the latter may seem less obvious now as a result of Federal Labor Environment Minister Peter Garrett for once having made a decision in favour of the environment by over-ruling the Queensland Government's plans to build the dam). Of course, the real solution is to create an alternative (which the Greens, sadly, are not) to both pro-big-business alternatives, so that the choice between Labor on the one hand and the Liberals and Nationals on the other becomes irrelevant.

Tigerquoll

Thu, 2009-12-03 10:19

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Time for new political parties

Many post-war ideals that Liberal and Labor, Tories and Labor, Democrats and Rebublicans all adhere to, are obsolete. Menzies steered Australia through war and boom times. Chifley's post-war immigration scheme may have been appropriate at the time. But it's time for new political parties to break the mould and to break community polarisation. Independents including Greens need to start having quarterly conferences to thrash out issues of consensus and to consider forming coalition to get a third and forth alternative out there. Australians are tired of the Lib-Lab pendulum. But at election time many vote for the lesser of the two evils simply because there is no alternative. The right stuff is not attracted to the Lib-Lab circus and can earn more in corporate anyway. The apportionment of wealth away from government and to the top 500 is squewed to the private and away from the public. Poor media ethics, standards, paparrazzism and the dominance of Fairfax and Murdock are disssuading many of the right stuff from entering the political landscape. Australia is suffering as a consequence.

The "Death Knell" of Jumps Racing is welcomed by animal activists

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Good reason not to vote for Liberals in Victoria

Disgust at Labor must not blind us to faults of Libs and Nats

Time for new political parties

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