So Veg

So it has happened again, an avoidable tragedy at the Calgary stampede. Three horses died today in a chuck wagon race. One was killed instantly when an empty wagon ran the poor animal over, and two others were euthanized later that day.

As you would expect, some protestors did come so state their case, but there were only around a dozen. Quite a pathetic turn out I must say. It’s sad, and I hope it does not mean that only a dozen people in Calgary actually care.

‘Anybody who sees this as sport or entertainment is living on another planet,’ Ken Erickson of the Calgary Animal Rights Coalition on Sunday. He was one of the twelve or so caring humans that came out to roar.

Racer Wayne Knight said: ‘We work 12 months to race three months and everyday we feed those horses and look after them just like kids. If they get a cut we get a doctor.’

Pardon me Wayne, but just because you take care of them twelve months a year does not give you the right to put their lives at risk for others entertainment, as well as your own. You may ‘own’ the animal, but abuse is still against the law. I file chuck wagon racing under the abuse category. They don’t call it the ‘half mile of hell’ for nothing.

The accident has been blamed on aggressive driving by one racer, who has been suspended from the Calgary Stampede. Sure, lets blame him, but can’t we also blame this ridiculous ’sport’?

The whole idea of the rodeo is so 100 years ago anyway. This is not the only event animals are injured and killed during. Have you ever seen that cruel event… hmm… what would they call it? Probably cattle roping or something. They release a terrified calf from it’s box, seconds later a man on a horse jumps out of the gate, he ropes the calf around the neck or horns, jumps off his horse, grabs the cow by the horns, twists it until it finally gives in and hits the ground. He then proceeds to tie all of it’s legs together. Then the clock stops the ass takes his hat off to salute the idiot crowd.

We have to put and end to cruel events like this one. People come from all over the world to see the Calgary stampede. What about innocent animals being injured and killed is entertaining?

-Mr. SoVeg

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