Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-21
AN INHUMAN SPORT.
Ouida Condemns in Strong Terms the
Brutality of HOrseracing.
WITHOUT A REDEEMING FEATURE
A Horse Should Not be Used at All Until
He Is Four Years Old.
FOSTERING AFFECTION FOB HORSES
rwR1rrrN roR THE D1srArcH.1 !

WRITTEN FOB THE DIsPATCH.I
If one in a thousand or ten thousand pass
to the stud and paddocks after the severe
trials of the turf, all the vast remainder Of
horses and mares trained for hat-racing and
steeple-chasing pass to lives Of misery, for
which their hothouse forced powers and
their overtried youth render them cruelty
untitled. The bleeding sides. cut open by
the jockeys whip, the lather Of sweat, the
bursting heart, the straining eyeballs, the
heshless and nervous physique, all tell,
without words, what the racer suffers in the
best years of his life; no human language
would be adequate to describe his suferings
in after years, when, unless he has been one
of the exceptionally fortunate winners who
are deemed worthy of preservation, he
passes through all the degrees of degrada-
tion, from the selling races of low meetings
to the shafts of the hanson and the mail
cart and the butchers van; to the last his
high spirit animates his trembling, aching
and emaciated frame, and to the last he
strains his exhausted and quivering limbs
in the service of that humanity which has
dared to call him the brute.
| A BRUTAL SPORT.
Racing has not one redeem1ng quality in
it; it has not even that share of peril for
man which does in degree palliate the
brutalities of a bull fight; its essential es-
sence and object is gambling; even where
the owner, which is very rare, does not bet,
| yet tine excitement with which he hangs on
the issue is essentially the excitement Of the
| gambler; fine fortunes have been surren-
| dered, great names have been ruined rich
men and poor men have been dragged down
to bankruptcy and blackguardism through
the fatal temptations of the turf; and
throughout its paltry and poisonous Sc
| ductiOns there is not single throb of any
emotion that is generous, any ambition that
| is honorable, any endeayor that is meritori-
Gus. That great mobiles and honest gentle
men continue to patronize its sport and
deity its jockeys is one of the most melan-
choly spectacles of modern life.
AN UNFORTUNATE EULoGY.
When the jockey, Fred Archer, died the
wall of the country, the threnody of the
| press were an insult to commOnsense and
human nature. He was killed by the fast
ing and privatious entailed on his success
In his miserable profession; but no one
seemed to remember this, or point out the
lessons to be learned from it; they only re-
| ported the bulletins of his Illness cOnse-
Grated column after column in the newspa-
pers to his biography, and lamented his loss
as a national misfortune as though Shakes
peare's or Wellington's self had perished.
OF the moral of the whole disgusting
story no one seemed in any way conscious,
and when, among the eulogies passed on
him, it was described how he was wont to
fcut the last inch out Of any horse he rode,
there seemed no perception whatever OF the
horrible cruelty involved in gaining such
repute. - ~~-~
Racing confirms the inclination to view
horses as mere gambling machines, like
roulette wheels, which is so general and
which has almost wholly stamped out the
personal affection for horse as friend and
comrade and tried servant, which used to so
unite the man and his steed The modern
intolerance of ''old" horses is altogether
against such an attachment being felt;
man who buys a horse intending to use it up
in its prime and sell it the moment it dis
plays the. slightest diminution of speed,
cannot look upon it as anything better than
chattel. Horses frequently change hands
dozen times before they reach their seventh
year; the consequences are disastrous to
them, and deprive them of all chance of Sc
curing permanent place in the hearts Of
their owners.
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horses carefully and keep them tenderlv un-
til real old age, and then, in lieu of selling
them for a trihe, give them a swift and pain
| less death, our streets would not be filed as
they are all the world over with the painful
| throngs of wornout carriage and riding
horses, toiling in omnibuses, in tramways,
in cabs and carts and tradesmen's vans.
NOT ALLOWED TO MATURE.
The most painful thing connected with
horses to those who care for them is that,
owing to our cruel habit OF putting them on
| the roads before they reach their maturity,
their legs give way whilst they are still
young, and sand crach, SPAWN, osserous
tumor, or any other of the many ills to
which their hoofs and legs are liable, will
frequently make them of no, or little, use
for work, whilst their wind is sound, their
body healthy, their eyes bright, and their
intelligence and spirit are as great as ever.
If no horse were used at all until he was
wears old at least, the race would be
| strong and the feet would long remain
sound; the horse does not reach his full
| maturity till he is 6. But the avarice Of
man forbids this; horses are bred as articles
of sale and sold for profit; no one viii keep
Young horse doing nothing for five years.
In the long run it would probably answer
| tn do so; for horse thus given leisure to
develop would be for 30 years sound and
seryiceabIe animal. But speculation does
not see advantage in this; breeders have not
the natience to wait for returns on their out
Law: fashion has decreed that horses must
he young ii. e. immature); and the turf
which iustifies its existence on the plea that
it is an institution for the development Of
borsehesh, use them up while they are little
more than colts and fllies and panders to
the popular prejudice in favor of immatur-
itv and speed versus maturity and sound
ness.
| A DREADFUL FATE.
1t is coldly calculated by horse-breeders
that it "yays best to breed many horses
rapidly and use them up in three years.
| work as they are used up by tramway and
omnibus companies. Therefore the work.
ing horse, like the racing thoroughbred, il
/ doomed before he is born or begotten.
1t is a sad and cruel fact. Those who
have horses may do all they can to mitigate
the fate of those who fall within the sphere
of their influence; but against the universal
sacrifice of this gallant and generous animal
to the greed and selfshness of man it ia
alas, very difficult to do much.
| 1 cannot conceive how any one having
loved horse and owed to it years Of
pleasant comradeship can bear to sell il
into the unknown horrors which await the
facilis descensus Of a petted animal into an
unpitied hack. Every one may not be able
to command the means to keep useless or
aged horse, but every one may have their
favorite shot and spared an existence Of in
ealculable misery believe that death by
blowing into the jugular vein is absolutely
painless; it nav be done while the horse is
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