With the deaths of two horses this past weekend at the chuckwagon races here in town, it's a perfect opportunity to bring up questions of whether the risk of death or injury among the horses is worth the entertainment value of the sport. It's easy to argue against the chuckwagons, citing the statistics and the numbers of horses who have lost their lives in the sport but it would be irresponsible not to look at the other side of it too.
While the death of any animal in a sport is a terrible thing, spending just a few minutes talking with any chuckwagon driver is enough to convince most people that the horses who pull these wagons love what they do and the drivers love them too.
Visiting the chuckwagon grounds before or after the races, witnessing the care and concern the drivers and riders have for their horses, makes it very difficult to claim these animals are being neglected or put at risk, despite the injuries that do happen.
The deaths of three horses at the Calgary Stampede a few weeks ago and now the deaths of two horses here in Bonnyville do raise important questions of ethics behind sports involving animals but calling for a ban to the sport isn't fair. If these animals weren't pulling wagons, they probably wouldn't be anywhere at all, having been slaughtered years ago after their usefulness at the racetrack ran out.
As Doug Irvine said following the death of his horse this past weekend, “They're born to run and they love to run.”
Slaughtering these animals instead of letting them run as they were born to seems more unethical than the chuckwagon races, where horses become family to the men and women who care for them and still get to run.
