3 posts tagged “horses”

To hell with horse racing. It's too heartbreaking. Too many brave and beautiful horses - and jockeys - are killed and crippled by it so that rich men can get even richer.

It's hardly surprising, given that racehorses are first ridden at a year old; a 3-y-o's running in the Belmont is the equivalent of a ten-y-o human's running the Boston Marathon. It's surprising there aren't more breakdowns.

Since Barbaro died I haven't watched any races or read any articles about racing and have no intention of doing so ever again. I've simply had it.

I gave up on baseball when it became steroidal and simultaneously expensive and cheap; I can give up racing. The fact that so much of racing is fixed just increases my disgust.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

BALTIMORE (AP) -- Three zebras from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus briefly escaped from their downtown venue, but were quickly corralled by their trainer and two handlers.

Mali, Giza and Lima spotted an open door at the 1st Mariner Arena on Thursday and dashed onto Hopkins Place, but were rounded up a half block away.  

Carrie Coleman, a veterinary technician for the circus, said it was a frightening incident, because the animals were in traffic lanes before returning to the sidewalk.

"They may have thought they were headed home," Coleman said, adding that the zebras were not hurt.

The same three zebras, plus a fourth, made a similar escape in June during the circus' visit to Colorado Springs, Colo.