Tianjin to Build China’s Largest Horse Prison

“It’s hard to justify how many horses we go through. In humans you never see someone snap their leg off running in the Olympics. But you see it in horse racing.”

—Dr. Rick Arthur, equine medical director for the California Racing Board

China is currently building its largest international horse-racing complex in Tianjin. The cost is estimated to be at ¥26 billion. ¥26 billion—that’s about ¥2,100 for every person in Tianjin. The complex will be the country’s largest horse prison, where horses will be bred, forced to train and race, and many will be ultimately sentenced to death.

Horses are trained for races in ways that would never be acceptable for training human athletes. Jockeys use whips to make them do what they want and feed them drugs such as steroids in order to enhance their performance. As long as people feel the need to force horses to run at high speeds under stressful conditions for “entertainment,” there will be deaths at racetracks. Many of those who do not die at the racetracks will end their careers in slaughterhouses.

Many of us have read Anna Sewell’s famous novel Black Beauty—for those who haven’t, it’s about a horse who was born free but was later enslaved and forced to pull carriages. The story’s valuable lessons of hardship, cruelty, sympathy, and kindness that Sewell wrote about in 1877 still apply today: “[Animals] cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.”

How You Can Help

●    Encourage everyone you know to boycott the horse-racing industry. Ask them not to bet on horse races or attend the races.

●    Write a blog post or share information on your social-networking pages about the unethical racing industry.

●      Please join our Activist Network to get involved.

Posted by Jason Baker