Suffolk Downs Anti-slaughter Policy a Joke
 

Suffolk Downs announced on Friday that it is reinstating 3 of the 5 trainers who were permanently banned under the track's widely applauded anti-slaughter policy:

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/nat...einstated.aspx

The timing of the announcement on the eve of the last major weekend of Derby preps was most certainly designed to keep this from attracting much attention, which was wise to do in light on the recent Ernie Paragallo charges. And this strategy seems to have worked since virtually no media have picked up on this pathetic charade that required mere letters of apology and a $1,000 donation to a horse rescue fund for reinstatement.

Suffolk Downs' management should be ashamed of itself for reversing its position at a time when a huge black cloud is hanging over the industry. It is clear that the media whores there just wanted positive publicity when it they could get it and are now willing to look the other way to fill entries with the track about to open.

i wrote them about it. wonder if i'll get a response.

I seriously doubt it and, frankly, no explanation they could offer would be acceptable. The New York Times has been all over the Paragallo story so maybe it's worth writing them even though Suffolk is in Boston? Maybe their writers would take an interest in this and give Suffolk the negative publicity it so richly deserves right now.

I am so disappointed. Of course, I don't know the whole story (who does?!) but never means never. The timing is just unbelievable. As far as the NY Times goes - they own the Boston Globe and are talking about closing it down (which is another entire story). Maybe a quick note to both the NY Times and The Boston Globe is in order here.

I am not sure that a policy that bans people for the misdeeds of others (legal misdeeds) is a good policy in the first place. The real villains are still banned. Believe me it is not easy to find homes for these types of horses and someone with a good story and phony brochures can get you. I just dont know how you can blame trainers for actions of others once the horses are out of their control. Despite the obvious distaste for horse slaughter, the legislating of responsibility beyond your immediate care is wrought with problems.

i read the story and of course saw that the party they gave/sold the horses to is the one who then sold them to slaughter. but i also saw that it was felt the three really knew exactly where the horses were going to end up. of course felt doesn't = knew....

If the track is privately owned, it can establish its own rules, just as those tracks that banned the jockeys a couple of years ago did. As far as the Suffolk trainers, one would think they would thoroughly evaluate any potential "homes" since they were aware of the track's policy. I can't cut them any slack under the circumstances. And the blame here really goes to Suffolk for reneging on the hard stance they took.

No one said that Suffolk cant set whatever rules it wants. but the rule was poorly constructed and fraught with trouble. If you cant see beyond your rage against horse slaughter to see that this zero tolerance rule is really flawed you are part of the problem, not the solution. How exactly do you throughly evaluate a potential home? I have never sent a horse to slaughter nor will I however I could wind up in a similar situation to these guys simply by being misled. Does that mean I deserve to get banned too? Try actually finding someone to take an unwanted horse, especially one that may not be sound or able to be retrained. The track should put up the money to take the unwanted horses off the trainers and owners hands if they want to do something constructive not put in place flawed, PR fueled rules.

I agree Monarchos . The trainers need to be accountable and the life time ban reinstated . Pathetic back tracking by that track .

The defense rests its case...

without free euthanasia or the ability for any/every horse to get "dropped off" at a rescue group there is no feasible way to adopt a zero-tolerance policy for slaughter.
I've been in the position recently of trying to find homes for a couple of horses and belive me it's next to impossible to find the perfect home. One had an injury that may prevent her from ever being ridden and she isn't the kind of quality that anyone in the racing industry would consider breeding her...it took several months before I found someone looking for a companion horse. The caveat was that they wanted the option to breed her...now, personally I don't think she should ever be bred and I know that by giving them this mare I am directly contributing to the overpopulation of horses....BUT if not for them she has nowhere to go. So I gave her to them, and they love her...and plan to breed her soon to a Quarter Horse.
Issues like these happen every single day and there is no black or white answer. The sad fact is that they can't all be kept and some would be better off dead. I in no way support slaughter, I think it is cruel and barbaric, but until there are shelters like dog pounds where they can be dropped off and euthanized if they cna't find homes then what is the solution?
We are fortunate enough that we can afford to feed the horses that need new homes until they find one but what about the people who can't? It's not always about the $300 bucks they might get from a kill buyer...sometimes it's the $300 they don't have to spend on euthanasia and carcass disposal.

as bad as that would be, i still think it's a better thing than having these horses end up half starved, neglected and then slaughtered after a hellish ride in a truck. like they say, the lesser of two evils is still evil. but i think it is a LOT lesser evil than slaughter. the fact remains there are too many horses and not enough owners willing to take on a horse for life, and not enough rescue groups.

It's sad that you need a defense. Good luck to you, your owners and, most of all, your horses.

omg

Good luck to you in your witchhunt where trainers are cast as witches like in Salem which isn't too far away from Suffolk Downs. You obviously have zero grasp of the issue at hand like so many of your pretty horse brethren who fail to understand that the tracks like Suffolk are simply passing the buck with their rules meant to pander to uninformed individuals such as yourself. Perhaps if people like you who are so deadset against horseslaughter would not let your emotions get in the way of dealing with the problem realistically then there would be improvement in this area. But you would rather draw a mythical line in the sand and refuse to listen to reason. Of course you probably never actually have to make a decision that effects the life of a horse or pay for their care. And while I hardly have to defend the health of my horses from the likes of a nitwit like you, it's safe to say that none of them are unhealthy, uncared for or headed for an untimely demise.

Well that's good to know. I trust you'll check out those good stories and brochures thoroughly.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with Suffolk's stated policy, track management has been exposed as hypocrital media whores in this instance. If the policy wasn't realistic, why did they implement it? To get some publicity, perhaps? And why did they announce the reinstatement of these trainers when they knew no one who be paying attention due to the focus on Derby preps and right before the meet starts. The track's hard line stance and subsequent laughable penalities of an apologetic letter and $1,000 donation are an insult to anyone who cares about animal welfare.

It was obviously not a well thought out policy and as you say positive PR motivated. But keeping these three trainers banned under a bad rule in no way helps animal welfare. They didnt have to announce the reinstatements at all but they did. What would be the proper punishment for someone found to be improperly accused? People who truly care about animal welfare should send the track an email stating that they should spend some money on the issue and set up an adoption program or at the very least a humane euthanasia program instead of a lame zero tolerence policy that can't be properly enforced or monitored.

And it was probably instituted in a hurry to shut up well-meaning animal lovers who don't think through to the root of the problem, which is too many unwanted horses. But they don't want to think about a complicated issue, so they focus on "horse slaughter bad!" make a stink, the racetrack management does the quickest thing it can think of to make the problem go away (okay! No slaughter tolerated here!) and then everyone is satisfied for a little while except the horses, who don't see any improvement in their eventual fates because nothing effective actually gets done.

If people want a long-term solution they're going to have to be willing to put pressure on the racing industry to (pardon the pun) pony up the $$ to see that the horses' retirements are funded and that the ones too infirm to enjoy a quality of life get humanely euthanized. But that's a lot of work because it requires owners and/or trainers and/or racetracks and/or the states that have race tracks to give up something, even though it likely would be a very small amount of money individually or per state (I would guess less than one percent of stakes purses or even handle would do wonders in funding rescue places). And in the ongoing war between kindness and commerce, I think kindness usually doesn't fare well.

And I think a lot of these animal lovers aren't really willing to put in the time and effort to work for a solution that would actually be in the best interests of the horses. How many anti-horse slaughter people do I know who eat factory-raised beef, poultry or pork? They're against horse cruelty, but, while they feel kind of bad about the fact that the chicken they're eating spent its short miserable life in an 8X10 cage with six other birds (with their beaks cut off), actually doing something about that would require inconveniencing themselves (spending more money on humanely raised meat, or limiting their meat intake) so they don't bother. And yet they expect people in the racing industry to be better human beings than they are because horses are prettier than chickens? Give me a break.

Sorry to ramble- I went on the page of one of the places involved in the Paragallo mares and the long list of very nice looking horses up for adoption really depressed me. So many horses and so few homes.

i enjoyed your rant...but the chicken part is incorrect-chickens (broilers and fryers) grow up in huge, open houses-so do turkeys for that matter. they only go in cages when they get on the truck to go to the processer. if any manage to escape once out of the house, they're free-and i've seen some get loose in the past.
as for beaks getting cut off, i haven't seen that either. maybe it's egg layers they do that to? i have no idea. but there are a lot of chicken houses around here, that's how i know about them. i've been in one once. uncomfortably hot, and boy does it stink in there.

Was the mare doable?

I believe the issue with Suffolk is that the trainers in question "claim they had "NO inkling" that they were giving horses to a killer buyer. That is a big lie to swallow.

Most on the backstretch know who is who...especially like a third rate track like Suffolk with a limited horse population. Canter is very active in NE, especially Suffolk so these trainers go the Paragallo school of deny,deny,deny.

No question. Too many unwanted horses is a big problem especially breeders like Paragallo running a puppy mill for "horses"

Controlled euthanasia is a better alternative than the "torture trip" from track to slaughter.
A bullet in the head is better than the torture these unwanted horses face getting to the slaughter facility. They "know" where they are going...and would probably opt for a quick, "painless" death.

All in all, I'm pretty disappointed with Suffolk on this. As a local, I have been following Richard Fields and his "new regime" operate here and they have done a lot of good for the whole operation. Going there on a nice afternoon for a day is now enjoyable, where as a few years ago it was close to unbearable. They should all be commended for bringing the track out of the toilet.

I'm all for anti-slaughter. I don't have an issue saying that. However, there is no denying there is an over-abundance in the population and something has to be done. It just cannot be cut and dry, as anti-slaughter being the answer. The game needs creative ideas to try and lower the overall population. Inhumane slaughter should not be part of the answer, however, Suffolk Downs chose to make it their main centerpiece of their platform. I think that's great, if that's what you want to do. But, you need to back that up.

If you say you're banning folks who partake in the sale of stock that ends up in kill pens then you need to stick to that. If you are going to give leeway to some, like Chip Tuttle has done, then clearly your policy is not what it was pumped up to be. Suffolk should be commended for their anti-slaughter stance, but they deserve condemnation in it's lousy execution. Looks like it's already time to clarify what the policy actually is.

Not my type.
But doable I'm sure.

That is the problem. Trying to determine who is "lying" and who isn't does not solve the issue. If the tracks want to take a stand, fine. Then they can fund a solution that coincides with that stand. This is not a question of legalities, it is a question of morality. And regardless of whether a track is privately held or not, legislating morality is a slippery slope. Singling out the last link on the responsibility chain is easy for the tracks and its supporters. Yet the root of the problem is still being ignored.

What about farm raised catfish?

People have got to establish what pain and suffering is
and in which species it matters.

Animals vary widely in
the type of nervous systems they have and clearly do not
feel pain the same way as mammals do. We try to make
this an easy issue but it is not.

Your chicken example of course led to the fish example.
Which could then lead to farm raised bivalves (mussels)
and on down the line. In all of these cases the animals
must be healthy in some way to yield the most meat
and to attempt to prevent disease.
Overcrowding... pain and suffering, its not that easy.

Better just stick with the mammals and watch it with
the birds, fish, amphibians (frogs), bivlaves ,echinoderms (sea cucumbers).
If you do go with the birds, I am going to have to insist
you also look closely into fish and mollusk torture.

surely catfish aren't in pain while swimming in these ponds i drive by? they get fed, swim around...and then they get flash frozen. but at least no one is starving them, not giving needed medical attention, and letting them get infested with parasites...

According to the TT article, these trainers admitted violating the policy as a condition of reinstatement. As for the announcement, Suffolk had little choice but to make it, as the trainers surely would have themselves. They took a proactive approach but timed it to coincide with Derby preps when no one would be paying attention. The Suffolk management isn't stupid, just hypocritical.

Heck no they are not starving. But they are way overcrowded.
Its clearly not a "natural" situation just like chickens. You dont
starve chickens to sell the meat. Thats part of the reason I said
stick with the mammals as an arguement. I used catfish as an
example because there was a point raised about the overcrowding
of chickens applied to horse slaughter.