It's a cute equasion to make with feminism, but I hate horse racing. It's inhumane.

First of all, the Belmont was an incredible race, one of the best stretch duels I've seen in years. Rags to Riches is a monster, and argubably the best three year old racehorse in the country right now. If she were mine, I'd be pointing her towards the Breeder's Cup Classic and a possible Horse of the Year title.

However, taking nothing away from their accomplishments as runners, the assertion that good female racehorses have something to with feminism has always gotten under my skin a bit. When Genuine Risk won the Derby, newspapers called it a victory for women's lib. Ruffian's match race with Foolish Pleasure was promoted in a similiar fashion. Rags to Riches is a horse owned and trained by men, who, unless tragedy strikes on the track, will spend the rest of her life having babies.

On the Belmont undercard, Derby 17th place finisher Teuflesberg won the Woody Stephens, a grade two race. His trainer is a woman, Jamie Sanders. ESPN announced that Teuflesberg's win makes Sanders the first woman to win a graded stakes at Belmont as a trainer. I'm not sure if that is true (ESPN is notoriously bad with horse racing info) but even if it isn't, Sander's win in a big race in a historically male dominated field, as a human woman, is far more relevent to feminism that is 'Riches's.

Animal exploitation is nothing to celebrate.

I have to wonder how many filly's actually race in big races like the belmont? I would imagine it is much easier to sell sperm than colts. I do feel really sad for this horse, she is gonna be pregnant a lot.

And they'll take her babies from her as soon as they're born, give them to a nurse mare who just gave birth, and sell that horse's baby to slaughter. And get the race horse pregnant again as soon as possible.

(I volunteer at a horse farm that rescues the nurse mare foals that would have been slaughtered. In the summer they also rescue loser race horses from the track and re-train them to be, well, pets, basically.)

syllogizer - what?

Unless Rags to Riches has some kind of problem raising her own foals (like she doesn't bring in milk or she rejects her foals) her foals will not be put on nurse mares. Nurse mares are used when a mare dies or when there is some other problem with the mare - they are not habitualy employed for race mares.

Critique the racing industry, but don't make things up.

Meh, the only thing the horse's gender determines is whether or not it can bear young horses. Otherwise, it may as well have been a male horse in relation to feminism, because it's not subject to all the misogyny that we human females fight against when we call ourselves feminists.

Meh, the only thing the horse's gender determines is whether or not it can bear young horses. Otherwise, it may as well have been a male horse in relation to feminism, because it's not subject to all the misogyny that we human females fight against when we call ourselves feminists.

Also, the form submission has just been really slow for the past few months.

Actually, in really topclass stakes races for three year olds like the Belmont,the most prestigious races are open to both sexes, but there is always a "fillies' equivalent" restricted to females,with a smaller purse. Most trainers keep their good fillies to the female races, because they have a better chance of winning, so the fact that she was even entered says she is SOME horse.

And yes,maybe not avictory for feminism. Google Judy Krone to find a real heroine, who's sadly had no successor so far.

Well, do you think the reason female horse races receive less attention and a smaller purse may be partly a bias on the part of the trainers? If so, I would say this is totally related to human feminism as well...

Hmmmmmm, well, that's an interesting slant that I hadn't thought of before. To some extent it's just a question of biology and cold, hard cash (which of course is essential to keeping the whole sport going).
Males, on the whole, run faster than females.
When they retire to stud (when the real money is made and lost), the females can have at most one foal per year. A successful stallion can "get" up to 200, and the owner of each mare that visits is charged thousands of dollars.
On the other hand, the percentage of males that are allowed to breed (and after that, the percentage that are good at siring fast race horses) is much smaller than the percentage of females. Even indifferent race mares end up as broodmares.

Great race mares are loved by owners and public alike: Miesque, Sceptre, Dawn Run, Triptych, Ruffian, Lochsong... A fast horse is a fast horse, at the end of the day.

It's more interesting to see how tough it is for female jocks and trainers. It still feels as though we only have "trailblazers". Trainers like Henrietta Knight and Jenny Pitman spring to mind.

I should have said "Julie Krone" by the way (oops). Here's a great piece from Salon about why she's a bad ass. There's still no one to compare to her, alas.

http://archive.salon.com/people/bc/2000/12/19/krone/index.html

"It's more interesting to see how tough it is for female jocks and trainers. It still feels as though we only have 'trailblazers'. Trainers like Henrietta Knight and Jenny Pitman spring to mind."

Speaking of women who train horses and of fillies in the news, I'm now reminded of Nicola Parsons who's blazing a different sort of trail in training Pozee-Tinkerbelle:

http://www.cumberland-news.co.uk/horse/viewarticle.aspx?id=181331

A shetland zony! Cool!

I wrote my master's thesis on women on the backstretch... Bowleserised, how do you know so much about the industry?

"A shetland zony! Cool!"

:) Here are some better pics than that article had:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1408717.stm

http://www.laura247.co.uk/iblog/index.php?showimage=107

Yeah, I have to say I think that horse racing is brutal & outdated.
But I'm one of those killjoys that dislikes Barnum & Bailey's b/c they use animals.

Moxie: you're absolutely right to hate Barnum & Bailey's. They're fucking evil! They treat those poor animals like dirt.

GiGi – I love horses and I followed racing very closely as a teenager. I thought about going into the industry too. Your thesis sounds brilliant!

The animal cruelty points... Well, I'm European and we do things differently here to in the States. Whip use is very strictly curtailed (it's still unrestricted in the US as far as I know), you can't race horses on painkillers (which is legal in some states), they run on turf, not a hard dirt surface...
Race horses, on the whole, have a pampered life indeed! Solariums and swimming pools and the best food money can buy. The greater issues to me are – what happens to the unsuccesful ones? And why are the pay and the living conditions for the grooms and work riders so shit?

But these are debates that would take this thread wayyy off topic.

ec55ea0e2e,

I don't know whether syllogizer's claims are true, however I can think of a couple reasons why breeders might use a nursemare:

- since the breeding mare is not nursing, her body might cycle back into estrus sooner and allow her to be impregnated more often over a shorter period of time. I don't know if horse biology works this way, but some other mammals' does.

- preventing the breeding mare from nursing might provide some sort of health benefit and/or minimize some potential health problem that may impact her fitness for future breeding. Again, I'm just guessing here.

Interestingly, some breeders use embryo transfer so the dam only conceives the pregnancy and then it's transferred to a surrogate mare. (I found this out from watching Dirty Jobs on TLC...I thought it was strange/creepy how they blurred out all the shots of the horses' genitals in that episode)

Was it being done with racehorses?

I have a feeling that in order to be registered to race, thoroughbreds have to be conceived and gestated the conventional way.

(ie no Fedexing their sperm around the world, as happens with other breeds)

edaselro,

I'm not making it up. I was trying to find the specific article where the owner of the farm I go to said it outright, but it was published last year and archived.

Apologies for my lack of HTML skills; here's the farm's site: www.beechmontstables.homestead.com/

A quick Google brought up several other farms around the country that rescue nurse mare foals, as well. This farm:
http://www.freedomhillrescue.org/gpage.html1.html

includes an article that states:

"The original use of a nurse mare was primarily by people who tragically lost a mare during birth, leaving a foal motherless. With mare mortality rates dropping due to advances in equine reproduction and parturition, the demand for nurse mares should be decreasing. This is not the case. The demand for nurse mares is increasing with unethical sport horse breeders wanting to relieve their athletic mares of nursing responsibilities, allowing them to return to sport competitions or be quickly bred back for another high priced foal."

Although I believe you that at one time nurse mares might have been used in emergencies as you state, the economics of the situation don't make sense. Why would there be so many rescue organizations adopting out dozens of foals each if the industry were only preparing for emergency situations?

"The demand for nurse mares is increasing with unethical sport horse breeders wanting to relieve their athletic mares of nursing responsibilities, allowing them to return to sport competitions or be quickly bred back for another high priced foal.""

That won't apply to race horses, but to dressage horses, show jumpers and three day eventers.
Race mares may run in the first few months of their first pregnancy* but after that they retire from the field and spend the rest of their days at stud.
Other equine competitions are another matter.

*Which works for horses, apparently. I once watched a mare win a top stakes race, then years later watched the foal she was carrying win the same race. Which was kind of cool.

The Belmont was incredible! Finally! Took my breath away!

What would be the point of a nurse mare in this case? For one thing, horses naturally come back into their normal cycle after they foal- which means even with a foal at their side, they could (technically) be bred again. However, top notch races horses like Rags will definately live a pampered life, and most legit farms don't practice this.

For horses to be registered with the Jockey Club (ie racehorses) they must be bred the 'conventional' way, meaning it must be done live cover- no IVF.

Lastly, Rags to Riches deserves all the props because regardless of sex- she was the best damn horse on the field. Not to say Curlin wasn't good- he's a friggin frieght train! However, she was BRED for the distance. I'm a little surprised MORE fillies don't enter distance races against the boys. Speed might be a little intimidating, but mares usually possess the stamina needed to go the distance. Rags had both. You GO girl! I hope to see her in the Breeders Cup!

What pissed me off was the medias CONSTANT mention of her five pound weight difference. They couldn't just let her win- they had to bring THAT up as if that had some type of advantage. They implied she wasn't just faster, she carried less weight. Let's do the math, fillies (usually) weigh less than colts regardless. So the five pounds LESS she was carrying should've made all horses on the field EQUAL weight when taking that into consideration. Damn you ESPN for always being retarded. Rags to Riches was the best horse on the field, and possibly the best 3 year old in the nation.

Then comes Curlin. :)