the melbourne cup 2018

​I have just subjected myself to knee-jerk sentimental blather of ignorant Australians crying animal cruelty and an end to ‘the annual slaughter’ after the Cliffs of Moher, as he was known here, broke a shoulder during this tear’s renewal of the Melbourne Cup and had to be euthanised. A tragedy for those closely connected to the horse, a convenient excuse for the ignorant to cry crocodile tears and insult our great sport.
This piece will be short as all I will doing if I write to my normal ‘no more than a thousand words’ will be to reiterate everything I have said many times in the past. The issue emanating from Melbourne is not misuse of the whip but misuse of one of God’s creatures, apparently. It does not matter how often you remind these idiots that horses are not bred for slaughter but to be admired and loved. It does not matter a jot how often you remind them how long they would howl if they went to their supermarket for dog food to find empty shelves because they had horse racing banned and there was no requirement anymore for the thoroughbred racehorse. It wouldn’t even cause them to twitch a fascial muscle if you informed them how many people around the world would lose their jobs if horse racing were to be banned as they wish.
These people are being mobilised by Animal Aid. Read their tweets and ingest their vitriol. These people are bad-mouthing good people who have cared for animals all their lives and trying to infect the majority with their ignorant judgements.
We cannot afford to dismiss these people as cranks anymore. We only need one of their number to rise to political power somewhere in the world and the dominos will start to fall.
Now is the time to be proactive, to be on the front foot. Ignorance must not be allowed to prevail. We owe it to the horse, the breeding and racing industry, to everyone who works with racehorses, to take steps to stay one step ahead of our enemies. Our love of the horse must be made publicly known and without emasculating our sport we should begin the process of change. Placing restrictions on the use of the whip must be our first line of defence.
Yet another brilliant day in the resurgence of Godolphin, by the way. And a 1,2,3 for British trained horses.