Kids eat on Saturday night

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I came across this today. Not sure how much weight it holds but perhaps our horse-racing experts could comment?

Dear Sir or Madam,

While the racing industry cries poor me, the general horse owning public is being held prisoner, in their own back yards and sometimes at unsecured show grounds, because of the Thoroughbred Racing Industry's carelessness. Briefly, every other breed of horse in Australia today has the capacity to use Artificial Insemination to breed their mares to virtually any stallion in the world. Through the modern and safe techniques of frozen semen, many breeds are benefiting from this technology. The thoroughbred industry REFUSES to adopt this practice. Therefore, they "shuttle' stallions every year at this time, from USA, Ireland, Japan, and so on, to use over Australian mares. These stallions are flown out in August and returned in March, some with service fees as high as $220,000, and cover (reportedly) 4 mares a day, so you can see the dollars involved.



It is because of this unnecessary practice that we, the horse industry of Australia, are in total lock down, from Polo clubs, dressage horses, carriage horses at Sovereign Hill, Pleasure horses, to the 6 year old who should have made her debut on horseback last Saturday. Even talk of 'delaying' the Melbourne Cup for heavens sake...hotel bookings, tourism, Farrier, National Livestock transporters, the list goes on...all because the Thoroughbred industry will not move in to the 21st century. They can avail themselves to the same technology those of us with $1000 stallions do.



Perhaps you could interview a prominent TB breeder and ask him why...he'll squirm and make excuses, like proof of parentage and such, but with DNA (which is what all other breeds use now) he won't be able to provide an answer. And as long as they keep shuttling stallions, obviously, this crisis could happen every year.

Could we ask the dept of Ag Minister to insist that Shuttling be banned on the basis it grinds our entire country to a halt? After all, we're in the 21st century and technology has moved with the times...Shuttle stallions must be stopped, and I don't think the general public has any idea that the people who are crying the loudest are the ones that did the deed.



I apologise if words like "semen" are offensive however horse-folk can talk about this in the supermarket isle! The public needs to be made aware, so we can prevent this happening every spring. I know of a showground that has families in lock down for 40 days! Are the racing fraternity going to pay their mortgage when they loose their jobs? You need to look into this...its criminal that the highest, most "well to do's " can hold the country to ransom like this with no compensation...it is their pure negligence and unnecessary practices that have caused this, do not let them tell you anything different. And explain to girls like this why they can't show their pony this weekend Mr. Friedman....Ms Waterhouse...
 
The presumption made here is that it was a thoroughbred brought in from overseas that caused the outbreak and I don't believe that has been confirmed. It could have been any breed of horse.

That aside AI is a very difficult question in thoroughbreds. Firstly, as it stands the genetic gene pools are fairly narrow already. I could give lots of examples but trust me that there is a huge dominance on a few sire lines. Secondly, the use of AI in thoroughbreds is banned internationally and any decision to reverse it would need to be taken by the International Studbook Committee through an agreement with member countries. Thirdly, chilled or frozen embryos don't seem to work for all stallions - some semen seems to die if treated this way. Fourthly, the best way for acceptance would be to have a cap on the number used in a season and legally this is a restraint of trade in many countries and not legally enforceable. Fifthly, there would be a high likelihood of the local industry (not the top end of the market) being decimated by the availability of AI and those affected would run into the tens of thousands. Sixthly, it would probably result in predatory pricing by a select small number of high wealth farms (similar to any other monopoly).

Realistically there is no real reason that AI couldn't be used except that it would most likely result in a changed industry where only a few players control breeding on an international level. At this time and until there can be legally enforced limits on the number per stallion I wouldn't like to see that.
 
And what about those Mums who fritter away the family funds on cosmetics, mind numbing magazines, hairdressing, and designer label clothing.

At least Dad has a chance of a return :lol2:
 
All horses entering this country go through the same quarantine procedure. To blame the shuttling of stallions is a bit of a stretch. What are the next steps, ban overseas horses from racing in our feature races? Ban all foreign horses coming into the country?
 
Yeah, I can see this could be an ideal platform for Hanson in the next election. Ban the foreigners because they are rooooining our industry.

Combining all the elements of proleteriat entertainment and fears, she'll be a shoo-in.
 
To some extent I agree with Mata on this. I think for many people all forms of gambling wrecks families. Therefore I personally rarely even flutter.

But I also know that it can be a sport for those that are able to control there spending, which can be very enjoyable.

So I’d hate to think gambling would be ever banned etc.

But I would like to see better involvement from clubs etc in helping or stopping the problem gamblers. I guess these problem gamblers can thank the Carr Gov't for bringing so many more Pokies to their disposal.
 
I would be interested in knowing whether gambling gets bipartisan support Byso as my guess is that there is not a lot of difference between the parties on this.
 
But I would like to see better involvement from clubs etc in helping or stopping the problem gamblers. I guess these problem gamblers can thank the Carr Gov't for bringing so many more Pokies to their disposal.

A bit like the current farce where pubs and clubs are supposed to "help" alcoholics?
 
It has to be something to do with whether or not a god exists
 

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