Originally Posted by
str
I watched the 9 minute version of this on DRF.
Where do I start.
First of all, while these people in PETA have plenty of passion for what they do, like most over the top organizations, they are filled with people that are so bent on what they feel, they can't see the forest for the trees.
I could spend an hour or two on that video and go point by point but I won't. If anyone has a particular question about something they saw or heard, I will explain what was going on.
PETA took hours of video and chopped it up to promote there agenda. There are IMO a couple of things in there that are worthy of a track investigation. No question about it. But the vast amount of all that was garbage. Not my opinion, but fact.
One thing that caught my ear was they put in a quick conversation about how "no pulse was felt in one foot, and barely felt in the other foot". That would seem to most people that the horse is near death and is doing terribly wouldn't it? Well, when you feel a horses legs and feel for a pulse in the two veins running down behind the ankle of each front leg, you do NOT want to feel any pulse. Someone at PETA should have consulted someone that actually knows before putting that in there video. What that did IMO was to cheapen the entire video.
When you feel for a pulse, of course they have one, but it is so subtle going to the feet that you really do not detect it from just putting your fingers on the veins. When a pulse is active, it means that the blood is trying to get to the foot, meaning, that the body is trying to supply more blood than normal to the area to fight off infection. So having NO PULSE is telling you that the foot is doing much better than it was when a heavier pulse was detected. I hope that makes sense because that is the truth.
So when I hear that, too me, the video loses a ton of credibility.
Lasix is a performance enhancer? Of course it is, so is aspirin. I think I spoke to that 2 years ago in here.
Freeze firing legs? It's been accepted by the entire veterinary medicine colony for probably 100 years. And while the horse is uncomfortable for roughly 48 hours afterwards, the daily discomfort from chronic sore shins or splints is far worse.
So, the vast majority of this video is simply propaganda .
However, there are some things that if proven to be true, should be acted upon immediately.
The stuff about the electrical devise needs to be looked at. If found to be true, that jock and asst. trainer should be held accountable IMO.
The illegal immigrant stuff should absolutely be looked into.
The minimum wage stuff, is hard to comment on because I do not know how they pay people and for what. In my day, you were paid by the job, not by the hour. If done properly, and in due time, it was a 40 hour week for grooms and less for hot walkers. You could make extra money doing other jobs on off hours. So, it's hard to comment on that without knowing what is going on.
As for the change your name stuff, it looks like that guy has a lot of explaining to do. Never happened on my watch. Not even close.
The asst. trainer seems to talk a big game around his employees. Some of that stuff sounded like I was watching King of the hill or Hee Haw. Again, none of my asst. trainers ever spoke like that and if they had of, they would have been looking for a new job.
I guess it's good that this stuff comes out in that it helps clean things up .
It is a shame though, that shock TV, slanted coverage and instant outrage is the way people choose to do it.
I guess there are three sides to every story though.
Peta's , the horseman, and the truth.