there are no crocodile tears in horse-racing.

​The most hurtful accusation made by members of Animal Rising and others like them is that horses are used by greedy humans to make money and when they are no longer able to contribute to their keep, they are discarded as one might take a car with a knackered engine to the scrapyard. The accusation hurts not because it is true but because it is so far from the truth.
In a perfect world, all horses when retired would live-out their lives under the sun, their bellies rich with good green grass. But there is no such place as a perfect world and thoroughbreds unfit for other equine disciplines or with injuries that cannot be healed must, in an act that is more a kindness than an unsympathetic decision, be euthanised. In the wild, where Animal Rising suggest is the best place for thoroughbred horses, where only the strongest survive, the old and the maimed would taken from this world by predators and perhaps suffer a lingering death.
The truth is simple, we give life to racehorses and, as one would might be forced to do with elderly relatives, we must take desperately difficult decisions at the tail-end of their lives. The important bit is how we treat racehorses in between the birth and the end-of-life.
Owners, trainers, jockeys and those who are fortunate to live beside and look after racehorses, care deeply about the welfare of the horses in their care. There are no crocodile tears in horse racing. The death of a horse is not the ‘tragedy’ of a missed putt on the last hole of a golf tournament; the missed penalty that gives the other side the trophy. A horse that suffers a fatal injury on a racecourse is, especially for the groom who must return home without his or her horse, a tragedy that is a dagger to the heart, leaving a scar that may never heal.
Horses live on in our memories and in our hearts long after their passing. There are as many statues and memorials to racehorses as there are for people involved in the sport. If you omit Queen Elisabeth the 2nd, her mother and Sir Winston Churchill, I would suggest there are more equine memorials than for humans.
For many horses the memorials are less public. Those mighty warriors that Peter Easterby had the honour to train, Sea Pigeon and Night Nurse, are buried in a metal-railed grave-site at the back of his house. Indeed, Peter Easterby’s wife made her husband promise to have her buried when she died alongside ‘the old boys’, a promise which was kept. I suspect Peter Easterby may have demanded that he too be laid to rest in the same plot of land.
Jack Morgan, Edward Courage’s head man for all the time he held a permit, is buried next to Spanish Steps, a honour I suspect Michael Tanner wishes could be prescribed to him. Read his book ‘My Friend Spanish Steps’ and you will understand my comment. I, too, would be honoured to lay beside the great horse. Or any of the many horses whose memory is as much in my heart as in my head.
Monty’s Pass is buried in the garden of Jimmy Mangan and Norton’s Coin in the garden of Sirrell Griffiths, no doubt laid to rest close at hand as their devoted carers could not face having them anywhere else. I dare say there are hundreds of other racehorses buried similarly, hopefully with a grave-marker and an inscription documenting their triumphs. Not that a horse need have won golden trophies to be worth deserving of a home burial. Bush Guide who took part in the 1984 Grand National, is buried in the front paddock of Val Jackson’s, who rode him at Aintree, home. He died on Christmas Day at the age of 24. In Chris Pitt’s wonderful book, perhaps my favourite racing book, ‘Down To The Beaten’, Val Jackson is quoted as saying. “I’ll be buried next to him. That’s what I want, to be buried next to the horse.” 
When Animal Rising make their accusations, they lay heavy insults not only on the sport but on animal-loving people who would drain oceans or walk on fire in the cause of the welfare of their horses. Could we, as a sport, do more. Of course. There is always more that could be done. But what must be remembered, it is because of horse racing that veterinary procedures are as advanced as they are, with advances in treating currently untreatable diseases happening year-on-year. Yes, throwing buckets of water over the winner of the Grand National on a cold day is nothing more than virtue-signalling, but the welfare of the horse is paramount in every stable in the land.
The sport must, though, accept that it has a duty to support all equine charities and strive to raise as much funds as those charities require to rescue any ex-racehorse failed by the people charged with caring for them and to retrain ex-racehorses for a long-lived life away from the racecourse. There should be dedicated race-days throughout the year to raising funds, and for the Grand National, and perhaps the Epsom Derby and Royal Ascot, used for this purpose.
Racing people care deeply about the horses in their care and we need to shout about it more loudly than Animal Rising shout its insults and misinformation.