Grand National - sport or big profits on the backs of the death of horses?

This is reposted from last year :

Its the race when those who never normally go near a bookies have a flutter. Well its a bit of fun isn't it? Well no :

The 2009 Grand National meeting claimed its fifth victim today (April 4) when Hear The Echo collapsed and died at the end of Saturday’s big race. Not since 1997 – when six horses perished – have more horses been killed at the three-day Aintree meeting.

Just 17 of the 40 Thoroughbreds entered into the four-and-a-half mile Grand National finished the race. Hear The Echo collapsed in the run-in and, despite oxygen being administered, he died. Butler’s Cabin also collapsed and required oxygen. At several other races he has had to be revived in this way.

Hear The Echo was just 8-years-old and was having his first race in Britain. His other 22 events were in Ireland.

The three-day meeting got off to a predictably grim start on Thursday, with two deaths and at least two near misses. One of the casualties was the highly-rated Exotic Dancer. The other was Mel In Blue – a horse with a track record at the other end of the ratings scale. Exotic Dancer finished second in his race but, soon after, suffered a fatal heart attack. Mel In Blue was riding in the Foxhunters’ Chase, run over the Grand National course, when he broke his neck after falling at the supposedly much safer Becher’s Brook,
Two more horses were killed the following day (Friday). Moscow Catch died after a heavy fall that appeared to break his neck, and Lilla Sophia, who was four-years-old and had raced only three times before, was destroyed after breaking a leg.

Says Animal Aid Director, Andrew Tyler:

‘Racing industry figures repeatedly claim that Aintree is not the threat to horses' lives that it was even in recent years, and yet deaths at the meeting continue to be routine. Last year, three perished, while the carnage this year exceeds anything seen at Aintree since 1997. The Grand National is appallingly cruel and deliberately so. It degrades all those responsible for staging and promoting it. The fatalities that so routinely occur are not accidents, they are entirely predictable, even though the racing industry tries to look the other way and plead innocence.’

Update :

The deaths of three horses at Britain's Grand National race meeting within 35 minutes has seen the BBC come under fire from an animal welfare group over its coverage.

Animal Aid accused the broadcaster of "continuing its grotesque cover-up of horse deaths at the Grand National meeting".

The charity was commenting as it prepared to protest outside Aintree in the lead-up to this weekend's Grand National Steeplechase.

On Friday, the second day of the three-day meeting, three horses perished.

Two of the victims broke their necks or backs almost simultaneously at Valentine's Brook on the Grand National course, while pitted against 27 other horses in the Topham Chase.

They were eight-year-old Prudent Honour and seven-year-old Plaisir D'Estraval. Neither had run over the Grand National fences before, the group said.

The third casualty was Schindlers Hunt, who was reported to have broken a front leg during the John Smith Melling Chase, just 35 minutes earlier.

The first day of the meeting also produced a casualty. A six-year-old mare, Pagan Starprincess, fell at the first obstacle in the 22-runner Silver Cross Handicap Hurdle. She is believed to have suffered fatal spinal injuries.

Animal Aid said it feared that Saturday's seven races, including the Grand National Steeplechase, would see the current tally of four deaths for the 2010 meeting increase further.

Last year, five horses were killed at the three-day event.

Earlier this week, Animal Aid director Andrew Tyler wrote to BBC head of sport Barbara Slater demanding that deaths at Aintree are not in future "glossed over" by its television team.

He accused the BBC of "fashioning a dishonest, sanitised picture of the Aintree meeting to maximise its earning potential".

The stone throwing chimp

Much discussion about the chimp who seems to have stored stones, planning his attacks on people visiting the zoo he is in:

There has been scant evidence in previous research that animals can plan for future events.
Crucial to the current study is the fact that Santino, a chimpanzee at the zoo in the city north of Stockholm, collected the stones in a calm state, prior to the zoo opening in the morning.
The launching of the stones occurred hours later - during dominance displays to zoo visitors - with Santino in an "agitated" state.
This suggests that Santino was anticipating a future mental state - an ability that has been difficult to definitively prove in animals, according to Mathias Osvath, a cognitive scientist from Lund University in Sweden and author of the new research.
"We've done experimental studies, and the chimps in my mind show very clearly that they do plan for future needs, but it has been argued that perhaps this was an experimental artefact," Dr Osvath told BBC News.
"Now we have this spontaneous behaviour, which is always in some sense better evidence."
Cracking show

Good for Him ! But the fact is he is agitated when he throws them and given that i'd hazard a guess that he doesn't like being imprisoned in an enclosure being gawped at by people for their entertainment and would much rather have his freedom in the wild.

Bears

For no real reason other that watching a David Attnborough documentary about Salmon Runs I have decided to let the left know that bears are my favourite animals. I am sure many of youse do not care about this trivial fact but I just really wanted to put up a picture of some bears, really.

I am sure there is a socialist and a feminist angle to support my blog post - like climate change, over fishing, hunting, loss of habitat, bear bile, bear farms, bear baiting, dancing bears etc but I won't but you can find out more about WSPA who do a lot of work to protect bears of the world here.

Shock horror: Cats are evil, fox hunters are providing a social service

Did you know that cats in Britain are responsible for 92 million deaths in the UK every year - surely the scale of the carnage makes them equal to fox hunters? An argument I have recently seen on another socialist blog.

So what is so clever about hunting? What's it all about. I don't really mind hunting if you are eating your catch but even then is hunting all that necessary? Cats of course are natural hunters and carnivores, they do not make choices about whether to mouse or not they act on their instinct.

Is hunting a violent form of recreation? Animals for some animals has resulted un extinction for them e.g. Tasmanian Tiger and the Great Auk. Is this OK? Does it matter?

Some socialists are debating about the hypocracy of people keeping CATS because they hunt and comparing it to fox hunting, hare coursing etc.

Now I don't mind a debate on hunting but I can't be bothered with the argument thay toonies don't understand rural society, I just don't buy that the rural community are all out hunting and striking fear in the hearts of random foxes and other animals that are hunted.

I am particularly against fox hunting, mostly because who eats foxes? If you aren't going to eat it then why would you want to kill it - for fun and sport!

Is being chased for several hours to be killed by a pack of dogs cruel? No, say hunt supporters, citing the top dog of the pack's natural instinct to administer a "quick nip" to the back of the fox's head, which they allege kills it outright. I wonder if they really believe that or just say it to people who are horrified or bemused by fox hunting.

Some have presented research that says the average duration of a hunt is only 17 minutes. The fox does not anticipate death, they say, so is not unduly traumatised by the pursuit. (Glad to hear it - the death is just out of the blue after fleeing for its life, what do they think the fox is running for?)

Pro-hunters point to the alternatives - shooting, gassing, snaring or poisoning - all of which inflict much more pain and suffering on the foxes. Already, 10 times as many foxes are shot each year than are hunted to death, they say.

I just can't accept that hunting is NOT cruel - foxes have no natural predators except man, and is therefore not accustomed to being chased. If there are problems with a fox then it can be shot.

However animal rights activists argue "The quick, clean death of the fox, so joyfully spread by the hunting fraternity is, in the majority of cases a lie. They will say that a fox is always killed by hounds with a quick nip on the back of the neck, thus severing the spinal chord. It may finally die this way, but it is likely that it will suffer multiple agonising injuries before the final 'nip' is given.
Many foxes have been recovered with their innards torn out, but no sign of that fatal nip."

The RSPCA's Alex Ross, for the Campaign for the Protection of Hunted Animals, added: "We do not believe that foxes are a national pest or a national problem. We believe fox hunting is cruel and unnecessary. If there is a problem with a fox, then a skilled marksman is the only answer. But killing wild animals for pleasure should not be acceptable in this day and age."

Country sportsmen and women are at pains to point out, however, that they make no secret of enjoying the hunt. Huntsman Jeremy Barnfield said: "It is a sport, and it is one that is very much enjoyed - but it's enjoyed for the chase rather than the kill. "We are doing the farmer a service, we are getting rid of the fox that would kill his lambs or chickens - and we get a good day's riding out of it."

Anyway the idea that cats and their owners are as cruel as fox hunters really is the daftest debate for socialists to have.

US Elections - late night blogging

I plan to stay up as late as I can and watch the results. I may be doing some blogging over at Liberal Conspiracy, but mainly here.


I am aware that some people think I have a poor grasp of socialist ideas ( I do though have a politics degree, so have a bit of a clue !). Others think this is a lifestyle blog or even that all I offer here is 'tits and fishnets'. Hmmm, perhaps posts about fisting, fucking and fishnets might have sullied my reputation:-)

Pah, this is a serious political blog. Well OK, not always. So I'm not going to be poe faced. In fact I intend to have some assistance from my cats. Tonight I will be in Brighton with them, some JD (the drink not Mr Denham), my laptop , coffee and snacks. I plan to chat with fellow bloggers and play a few moves on facebook scrabble with Jim J and who knows perhaps Mr Pottins , my regular fellow addicts.
Back to the cats. I plan to upload pics of them as the results come in. Well you didn't expect them to type did you. Nope, they are purely decorative.

So live cat blogging on the US Elections...

Pic : Beryl sort of showing an interest .

Giant Rabbits

I haven't posted anything recently so I thought I would put up a picture of a giant bunny rabbit because it was Easter. Hope youse didn't eat too much chocolate today. I went to a Easter tea party - ate too many cakes and then had to lie on the couch all night drinking herbal tea. But atleast i don't have to go to work tomorrow.

Now I've Got A Cat Too

Here she is. Her name is Professor McGonagall, suggested by my 3-year-old son Harrison, after the Harry Potter character who can change into a cat. Of course, that's too much of a mouthful for everyday use, so she is affectionately know as Minnie. Not only is this short for Minerva (Professor McGonagall's first name), but is conveniently the name of one of my great heroes (Minnie Lansbury) and one of my 8-year-old son Alex's great heroes (Minnie The Minx).

This is something of a challenge to Obi (short for Obi-Wan Kenobi), our 8-year-old labrador / springer spaniel cross, who really wants to be Minnie's friend, but usually just gets a hiss and a slap round the nose for his troubles.

Meet Moonlight

Sorry I've not blogged for a while, but no matter - Louise has been keeping the blog lively! I'm pondering various thought-provoking political pieces, but while they gestate in my mind, I'll just let you know that I and my family have adopted a dolphin. She's called Moonlight and lives in the Moray Firth - one of 130 bottle-nosed dolphins who live there. Oh, and that's her in the picture.

I thought I'd pass this information on so as to interest those of you who share my love of wildlife, and to wind up Southpaw Punch and give him another pretext to condemn this blog for being apolitical and more like National Geographical than a serious socialist blog. And there was me thinking enjoying and preserving the beauties of the world's environment would be of some interest to socialists.

Yangtze river dolphins

I just find this sad :





A freshwater dolphin found only in China is now "likely to be extinct", a team of scientists has concluded.

..............

The team, writing in Biology Letters journal, blamed unregulated fishing as the main reason behind their demise.

If confirmed, it would be the first extinction of a large vertebrate for over 50 years.

"The Yangtze river dolphin was a remarkable mammal that separated from all other species over 20 million years ago," Dr Turvey explained.

"This extinction represents the disappearance of a complete branch of the evolutionary tree of life and emphasises that we have yet to take full responsibility in our role as guardians of the planet."

If confirmed, it would be the first extinction of a large vertebrate for over 50 years.

The species (Lipotes vexillifer) was the only remaining member of the Lipotidae, an ancient mammal family that is understood to have separated from other marine mammals, including whales, dolphins and porpoises, about 40-20 million years ago.

The white, freshwater dolphin had a long, narrow beak and low dorsal fin; lived in groups of three or four and fed on fish.

Just more fucking up of this planet .

Oscar - a spooky feline

Apparently Oscar , pictured, seems to know when residents at a nursing home are about to die :

A US cat with an apparent ability to sense when a nursing home's residents are about to die is baffling doctors.
Oscar has a habit of curling up next to patients at the home in Providence, Rhode Island, in their final hours.

The two-year-old cat has been correct in 25 cases so far and staff now alert the families of residents when he sits down next to their ailing loved one.

The case is the subject of a study in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Doctors say that when Oscar settles next to a patient, it can mean he or she may have as little as two hours to live.

"He doesn't make many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," David Dosa, a professor at Brown University who carried out the research, told the Associated Press news agency.

Oscar was adopted as a kitten at Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre.

The cat is said to do his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses at the home, but is not generally friendly to patients.

Although most families are grateful for the warning Oscar seems to provide, some relatives ask that the pet be taken away while they say their last goodbyes to their loved ones.

When put outside the room, Oscar is said to pace up and down meowing in protest.

Thomas Graves, a feline expert from the University of Illinois, told the BBC: "Cats often can sense when their owners are sick or when another animal is sick. "They can sense when the weather will change, they're famous for being sensitive to premonitions of earthquakes."

A doctor who treats patients at the home said she believed there was probably a biochemical explanation, rather than the cat being psychic.

I can imagine that may freak out some of the people there, a sense of unease as he prowls around, hoping he does not settle by their side.

I think if I was about to die I would find a cat curled up by my side quite calming.