The following residents of the ACT draw to the attention of the Assembly that the horse racing industry is out of step with community expectations in the ACT. Despite protestations about jobs and “loving their animals” the primary motivator is financial and personal success and glory for the trainers and owners – not the horses. Horses lead an unnatural and restricted life while racing, and at worst end up as “wastage” in an industry that has no more use for them. They are stabled most of the day, unable to graze and suffer horrific injuries, occasionally visible, such as the 7 horses that have died during the Melbourne Cup over the last 7 years, but mostly hidden from public view.
The extreme mental and physical suffering these sentient beings experience “for fun” is not acceptable to most Canberrans. The conditions they live and die under, all at the behest of an industry with questionable ethics and subject to allegations of links with organised crime, goes against community expectations. Canberrans do not want to prop up this cruelty any longer.
Your petitioners, therefore, request the Assembly to call upon the Government to withdraw all public funding (understood to be in the vicinity of $6 million annually) to Thoroughbred Park. This money should be redirected to support Canberra’s arts and entertainment industry, where animals are not exploited or abused.