2019 Calgary Stampede

[Slava]

I don't think it's "anti-Stampede" though. How about a line where the feeling is "I like the Stampede and events, but at the same time animals dying and suffering for my entertainment makes me very uncomfortable."

I know that's hypocritical to an extent, and yeah I'll still wear leather and things like that...but still, I think that's more accurately my personal position on things.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by KTrain

As for step 2 on the chucks: fewer horses being used for races should mean fewer are being born/raised to race. Slowly phase out the event.

No that's really not the case.

There aren't horses being born and raised for chuckwagons. They are being bred for the racetrack. And most of them will end up being sent to the slaughterhouse when they are deemed unfit to race anymore (usually around six or earlier). 10,000 US thoroughbreds will be slaughtered this year.

The luckiest that aren't sent to the slaughterhouse end up in the chuckwagons where they can get an additional 15 years doing what they were born to do. It's not unusual that the very same auctions where slaughterhouses are purchasing their meat, chuckwagon racers are getting their team of horses.

Only the extreme select few will be sent to pasture to be studs, and even then the owners will send them out to be slaughtered once they stop producing foal.

[CaptainCrunch]

First Stampede I haven't bothered to go to in 3 decades. I just didn't feel it this year.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Slava

I don't think it's "anti-Stampede" though. How about a line where the feeling is "I like the Stampede and events, but at the same time animals dying and suffering for my entertainment makes me very uncomfortable."

I know that's hypocritical to an extent, and yeah I'll still wear leather and things like that...but still, I think that's more accurately my personal position on things.

Oh yeah fair enough. There are degrees in those that oppose, didn’t mean to group everyone together as “anti stampede”. It was just lazy writing.

[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

Yeah I think the biggest gap in the “anti stampede” conversation is what happens to the animals then.

So often I hear the argument “well they can just not race”. Well, that’s not really the answer you think it is. Who’s going to care for them? They are very expensive to house, feed, and maintain. “Just let them live in a field” isn’t an option.

This is the crux of it for me too. As others have said, there's no magical meadow for horsies to prance around in with unlimited space and no danger from predators or anything else. Even if you could legally straight up release every retired racing horse to the wild you're basically signing their death warrant right then and there. You're a horse, your life choices are:

A: Insta-death at the slaughterhouse
B: Release to the wild where predators, disease, famine, broken bones, or other horses will get you eventually.
C: Overwhelmingly high odds of another 10 years of life being cared for, safe from everything except broken bones listed in B, while being able to do what you're born to do and run.

Seem like pretty easy calculus to me. I don't like the idea of animals dying for my entertainment either, but the world is complicated and running the options in reality yields a pretty easy decision.

[Fuzz]

if "10,000 US thoroughbreds will be slaughtered this year" maybe we should stop breeding so many of them? Horse quotas!

[Oling_Roachinen]

Yeah, but that has zero to do with the chuckwagons or the Stampede.

They are being bred for the racetracks in the US. They won't slow down until you somehow convince them to stop the Kentucky derby.

It's akin to trying to end sports related concussions by banning intramural dodgeball. It won't have any noticeable effect. Except in this case you would be rounding up all the dodgeball players and sending them to a more-often-then-not inhumane slaughterhouse. Which I may be able to get on board with.

[Ashasx]

I thought the fireworks were very good this year.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Yeah, but that has zero to do with the chuckwagons or the Stampede.

They are being bred for the racetracks in the US. They won't slow down until you somehow convince them to stop the Kentucky derby.

But people dress like hillbillies to attend one event, and fancy clothes to attend the other. So clearly one is worse.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Well the US has figured it out though. They've banned slaughterhouses so they are far more humane than us rednecks.

So now when it's time to kill one of the 150,000 yearly doomed American horses (10,000 of which are thoroughbred) they just send them to...well a slaughterhouse in Canada or Mexico. Except the best part is the horses go unfed and without drink for days or weeks at a time when they make their way across the border ironically in the name of being humane.

[OMG!WTF!]

My experience with drivers buying their horses around here is that not many actually go to the meat auction to buy. Most claim them right out of a race on the track or buy them directly from trainers. The ones you see on the Stampede wagons are still very elite horses. They're horses someone would want for something. Thoroughbreds do it all and are very desirable as hunter/jumpers, course horses, ranch horses. The slaughter horses I have seen are definitely a lesser quality and would be no match for these stampede runners. They may not have even seen a rider either so paying a bit more for the known training is well worth it. But I don't know for sure. The whole thing really bums me out now.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Some of these horses are bought for a tens of thousands, although a rarity.

The chuckwagons do create a market, but remove the chucks and the market is gone. There's enough of these horses so you're just destining a horse (maybe not quite the same horse) to the slaughter for every chuck horse you would 'save' by banning the sport. The point is no horse is ever bred specifically for the chuckwagons, they are failed or retired racetrack horses.

Here's chuckwagon champ Sutherland, obviously biased, speaking on Friday about it:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens...pede-1.5209651

One horse I bought [was] a three-year-old — who was, by the way, destined for slaughter out of a Vancouver racetrack — and they begged me to take him. And I did take him for $300 at the time. And he is currently retired at 26 in the pasture.

So that horse has been 23 years at my place. So, as you can understand, there's a tremendous bond with a driver competitor and his livestock. Because they are the athletes that can put you on stage, win you the money. They do exceptional amounts of things for you. So any time that there's a fatality, it's rocked the whole community.

Well, there's no doubt about it. Currently, there's 20,000 thoroughbreds thereabout in North America that are foaled each year. Half of them end up in the slaughterhouses. And the chuckwagon industry, currently there's about 100 drivers and they have about 30 horses — so there's about 3,000 chuckwagon horses at all times.

If you eradicate the sport, then there will be 3,000 more of these thoroughbreds that are destined for slaughter because there's absolutely no other alternative for these horses.

[transplant99]

The rate of death of chuckwagon horses in competition is one quarter of 1%.

The rate of death for thoroughbreds that dont go to chucks etc, is 95% because they head to the slaughter house for other uses.

So call for the end of chuckwagon racing if that's how you feel (and i get it, i really do), but realize in doing so that is a death sentence for virtually every other thoroughbred who doesn't do well at the race track and needs to retire. Which is about 99% of them after 4 years.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by transplant99

The rate of death of chuckwagon horses in competition is one quarter of 1%.

The rate of death for thoroughbreds that dont go to chucks etc, is 95% because they head to the slaughter house for other uses.

So call for the end of chuckwagon racing if that's how you feel (and i get it, i really do), but realize in doing so that is a death sentence for virtually every other thoroughbred who doesn't do well at the race track and needs to retire. Which is about 99% of them after 4 years.

So much this.

If you could talk to a horse and ask it if it wanted to be glue/dog food/eaten in France or race chuckwagons, I wonder what it would choose???

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

So much this.

If you could talk to a horse and ask it if it wanted to be glue/dog food/eaten in France or race chuckwagons, I wonder what it would choose???

As a lady on CTV news was saying.. We don't have the horses consent to race them so the chuckwagons should be shut down!

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

First Stampede I haven't bothered to go to in 3 decades. I just didn't feel it this year.

I don't reckon you missed much.

[Rando]

Originally Posted by transplant99

The rate of death of chuckwagon horses in competition is one quarter of 1%.

The rate of death for thoroughbreds that dont go to chucks etc, is 95% because they head to the slaughter house for other uses.

So call for the end of chuckwagon racing if that's how you feel (and i get it, i really do), but realize in doing so that is a death sentence for virtually every other thoroughbred who doesn't do well at the race track and needs to retire. Which is about 99% of them after 4 years.

So maybe we need to get right at the root of it and stop thoroughbred horses and racing in general. I have no problem with that. When horses are bred to be facer than their skeletal structures can support maybe it's time to take a step back and stop the entire nonsense altogether.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Rando

So maybe we need to get right at the root of it and stop thoroughbred horses and racing in general. I have no problem with that. When horses are bred to be facer than their skeletal structures can support maybe it's time to take a step back and stop the entire nonsense altogether.

Horses are expensive. Guess who loves horses? Rich people.

You propose to take the Rich People's Toys away?

Good luck...

[Rando]

That's what they said about Fox hunting in the UK

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Rando

That's what they said about Fox hunting in the UK

Which has actually increased since they banned it. So, as Locke said:

Originally Posted by Locke

You propose to take the Rich People's Toys away?

Good luck...