What if you had a really good job where you earned loads of money at times, and worked your butt off to do it. What if the job was monotonous, only involved running as fast as you good and turning left when appropropriate. Maybe you live for the roses at the end. Maybe you don’t care about them. Maybe it’s just a run your forced to do. You train and train many times a day to run faster. When you’re sick or injured, you’re given drugs to keep you running.
At the end of your career, you’re discarded.
That’s what happens to at least 15% of thoroughbreds in America. Their racing days are over, so they’re taken off to the slaughterhouse to become a part of animal food or glue or edible food.
I hear horse meat is good. But to me, eating a horse would be like eating my golden retriever. There is something about horses that calms me whenever I am in their presence. To me, they’re almost human; just like my dogs.
After their racing days are over, a horse could have 30 years of life yet. Places like Lumberjack Farms in Cookstown, NJ are rehabilitating thoroughbreds, and allowing them to live full lives.
You may ask what sort of rehabilitation is required for these horses, and I actually had not thought much about it until I saw a news story about it. The most obvious rehabilitative work is to overcome any injuries incurred during the course of racing. Some of them have been taken out of the racing circuit because they are either too slow or too broken to continue.
The other issues worked on involve retraining the horse to do something besides running at full speed and
turning left. They learn to trot and jump and just “be horses”. They go through “detox” to get them off of whatever drugs they’ve been infused with to get them up to their top racing form.
I think this is a valuable endeavor. They deserve to be treated with more care than live machinery making people money, only to be tossed away when their racing days are over.
If you’re so inclined, you can adopt a horse for a very small fee here.
Also, horses who do art, here. 🙂

I’m on my third TB ex-racehorse. I’ve rehabilitated all of them myself. Unfortunately it takes two years (or sometimes longer) of retraining to get the mental out of their heads and turn them in to safe riding horses. And retraining them isn’t a job for amateurs.
But it’s very rewarding, to see a rehabilitated racehorse having fun and enjoying a new lease of life.
Unfortunately ex-racehorses are as cheap as chips at bloodstock auctions. Far too often people read about how inexpensive they are and that such an ex-racehorse has just won a Four Star three-day-event. And these people engage on a course of action that usually leads to tears. Or worse. 😦
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Ahh… good point, well made. It seems that it would be better to let a trainer retrain the horse, and then adopt it, if someone is willing to let go of the horse at that point.
Do you sell them after rehabing them, or do you keep them?
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