Steve, please respond
 

Hey Steve,

I'm listening to your show and join you in your outrage of PETA's obviously horrendous evaluation.

I have a suggestion...DT Nation mobilize!

Why don't you write a response in your usual eloquent way and DT Nation will distribute it to all local (we must cover the nation if not the world) and national press.

In this way we can show a unified voice to properly explain what happened and what the sport of kings is all about.

This is a great way to educate the masses.

What say you Steve?

Spyder

Yes. What PETA needs is more attention. Lets give them what they crave.

PETA is supposed to have a rally in Lexington tomorrow.

We are hoping that there is zero interest, and no attendance.

As it should be, for PETA.

I think once the world tastes how delicious horse meat is, PETA's argument against horse racing will lose some if its punch.

What was I thinking...

People Eating Tasty Animals! :D

carolina bbq could set up right acrossed the street:D

Steve, pretty please?

They were protesting outside of Keeneland and Churchill today. Unfortunately it seems to be getting at least local coverage.:mad:

I'm unsure of the best response. Certainly today on mainstream sports talk they were scoffed at widely... which is appropriate of course. If people who don't really know the game think they're being ridiculous, it'll fade away quickly.

As Pais brought up earlier today, the reality of this in terms of PETA themselves is strictly limited to their animus towards KFC (Yum! Brands).. That's what got them focused towards the Derby originally, when they caught on to spokesperson Pam Anderson's regular attending of it...

Let's see what the next day or two brings...

Didn't see anything about them on TV. I was at Keeneland from about 12:30 to 2:00, didn't see them (a good thing). OTB was closed today, so not a soul at Keeneland anyway. They don't like protesting in front of nobody, so maybe they went home due to lack of interest? :p

Tomorrow they will be out at the Horse Park, protesting in front of the horse racing commission. The only people out there will be employees, maybe some tourists over away from the offices.

I think they'll be pretty disappointed tomorrow, too. Unless some locals show up to box their ears a bit. That could be fun.

a peta spokes woman was on the mike tirico and scott van pelt yesterday afternoon. tirico and van pelt both admitted they don't know racing very well. at one point tirico said "you still haven't answered my question, i'll ask it a third time". van pelt chuckled. after the answer he chuckled louder. the question was in the line of, was EB whipped anymore than any horse in any other race?
the spokes woman came off sounding very poor.

I was struck by how little the PETA spokesman actually knew about the issues. She had one statement and kept repeating it, and she was unable to answer any of the questions they asked. She looked like an imbecile and Tirico and Van Pelt sounded like they were mocking her because she was so unprepared.

i can imagine-they have their little sound bites, and nothing of substance to add. probably like little parrots, trotting off their one liners.


but, if you go after racing, what next? nascar, indy have had deaths. football..hell, a soccer goal fell on an eight year old the other day, should we ban soccer? my husband said you wouldn't hear any of this, had a horse stumbled and pitched a jock, with the horse ok and the jock passing. he may be right.

as she hung up and they went to commerical van pelt says " we need a clean up in aisle 4":)
cowherd refused to put peta on his show.

If we pay attention petas only report is poor horsey and they have no constructive solution. All they want is the pub. The more facts presented the dumber they look. Every 8 belles incident is $$$$$ to them.

I read on the internet that there were as many people rallying at the horse park FOR racing, compared to the PETA nut-cases.

Also, to get rid of their rumors of the horse being on steroids, Jones is having Eight Belles tested to prove that he didn't juice the horse up with roids.
That'll be a good PR move for all, as long as the horse comes out clean.

good for colin!!

PETA may not know what they're talking about when it comes to specifics about horseracing. But I would not criticize them for being critical of horseracing. When you have horses being forced to race and breaking their legs and dying, that is pretty hard to defend. Most of my livelihood comes from horseracing, but I can't sit here in good conscience and claim that there is no cruelty in horseracing. And I'm certainly not going to get mad at a group (PETA) who sees horses dying and wants some answers.
I'm glad someone is speaking up. I'm glad that someone cares. PETA's specific criticisms may not be correct, but if they were properly educated I think they would come up with tons of legitimate criticisms.
What happened to Eight Belles may have been a fluke, but most breakdowns are not flukes. Most horses that break down are very unsound horses that should not be racing.

I think those are extremely poor analogies because nascar drivers have a choice. Nobody is forcing them to race cars for a living. Jockeys have a choice. They know the risks. Horses do not have a choice. They are forced to race.

lets say it was your horse in the derby that broke down, and while you were dealing with the anguish, Peta named you as someone that should be suspended, without doing any type of investigation into whether or not you did anything wrong, but went right to the national media and called you out for sanction. would you still not be mad, and be talking about how great it is that they are speaking out?

my comparisons were to show that other sports have times when someone is killed, but those sports are not then forced to answer questions as to why it should continue to exist.
i've also heard comparisons made of horse racing to dog fighting. but the sole purpose of dog fighting is to have a dog die. i don't see a comparison to that either.
and yeah, it's not as tho horses gather on the corner and set up a race. but we all just need to continue to work towards having owners/trainers make the best choices for their horses, and try to make this sport safer.

I think before you condemn anything as cruel or question whether a sport should exist you should have a basic knowledge of what the sport is about.

They have to speak up now while the event is still getting coverage and still on people's minds.

Of course I would be upset if PETA blamed me for a horse's death and the death was not my fault. I would be upset but by the same token I would understand where they're coming from. They see something like this happen and they want to blame someone. That's understandable. But in this case, there may not be anyone to blame. It may have just been a fluke.

I don't always agree with PETA's methods but as long as they're trying to speak up for animals, I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

I can tell you one thing. Horseracing certainly does not do a good job of policing itself. If animal groups speaking out will encourage the horseracing industry to do a better job of policing itself then I'm all for it.

It obviously would have been better if PETA would have simply demanded answers and demanded an explanation, rather than criticizing individuals who were probably not at fault. But what do you expect? They know very little about horseracing.