Been doing a lot of research recently regarding horse welfare. It seems there are some startling goings on within the industry that concern me greatly, as I am an avid racing enthusiast, but not at the expense of the animal.

No, I'm not one of those rogue protesters, nor am I going to agree 100% with anyone either side of the fence, I'll just state the facts I've found that are a matter of public record.

These prestigious bloodstock sales are full of a dirty secret.
Many of the larger auction establishments are purchasing the supplementary animals that don't achieve a certain figure, and selling them to the knackery for profit.

I have investigated this issue thoroughly, and have evidence of names of those that do it, and the horses involved. (Not to be mentioned here)

I went through the catalogues at the sales and looked for the cheapies, I then researched each and every horse purchased in house that had a racing name.

Then I went a step further and investigated the lot numbers at one knackery which shall remain nameless.

This concerns me greatly, because there are horses that need to be put down, but the treatment prior and the manner in which they are killed is simply sickening.

The big auction houses which are a part of this should be ashamed of themselves.

Looking up horses, I have found that horses killed at the knackery are hidden from public view, RISA are not even informed that the horse "died", many of them are simply listed as spelling

The second issue is the stance of a so called animal welfare agency.
They are criticising horseracing, whip use, jumps racing etc etc.
But both the Victorian and NSW divisions have supported the culling (too ashamed to say killing) of Australia's wild brumbys.

At first thought one might imagine that perhaps for the welfare of the population, numbers need to be decreased. I don't agree with this, but can see the point.

However, the startling facts are these:

It is reported that many are starving to death in the wild, however, just about all video footage of these horses in the wild shows them almost obese!
There are of course some starving brumbies, but this is natural attrition due to their teeth being worn down and unable to feed properly. This happens with windsuckers if left untreated.

In the last brumby cull many were not killed instantly and carcasses were just left to rot, which created all sorts of health risks for the remaining horses.
More than one brumby was found alive but injured days later, one brumby was finally found two weeks later still alive but wounded badly as repoted on ABC TV.

This is the solution to badly managed National Parks, to make the problem go away.

If someone shoots their own pet, they are charged with animal cruelty (if the animal isn't injured).
So how can this be legal?

Surely trapping the males and setting up a fenced area to control numbers is a more humane and effective longterm control. A fenced area could be less than 1% of a National Park and still be massive in size so as to not restrict freedom of movement and still supply enough food.

It costs $40 a head to kill 1,000 brumbies.
I think there are better ways of killing them for $40,000 than aerial shooting.

I don't know, it's all just inhumane and completely illogical to me.

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