Dear Editor:
RE: Horse Racing Appeal Panel clears local harness racing trainer of horse cruelty, March 14.
Picture this headline: “Man who lashed young child 25 to 30 times with a whip is cleared of charges.”
We’d all be outraged. Yet this is exactly the kind of treatment of race horses that we tolerate – even encourage – in Ontario. The report of the appalling cruelty inflicted on a yearling named Wait in the Truck was shocking in itself. What made the story even worse was the bragging defence by his trainer, Anthony Beaton that it’s “a matter of will – will the horse beat the humans, or will humans teach it to comply?”
Beaton admitted that at least 15 welts of blood appeared on the animal during the whipping. A veterinarian testified that his actions constituted “abuse”. Yet the Rules of Racing bigwigs cleared Beaton of charges, reduced the time of his suspension from two years to four months and then blithely had the gall to declare that it is “committed to the welfare of race horses.”
Who are they kidding? Why in Canada do we still have no laws protecting animals from this kind of brutality? Many other countries around the world have already introduced such legislation and it’s long overdue here.
Every person involved in Ontario’s multi-million dollar Ontario horse racing industry should be ashamed of what happened to that helpless horse. And Beaton should have been banned from training horses for life.
Sonia Day,
Fergus