I'm not even sure where to start with this piece of crap. But I hate PETA the most so I'll start with them.

People for the "Ethical" Treatment of Animals (PETA for the .01% of you who didn't know) are calling for Eight Belle's jockey, Gabriel Saez, to be suspended. They believe Eight Belles was "doubtlessly injured before the finish". This is part of PETA's actual statement (I warn you, it is insanely stupid):

Now I'm also curious if he felt anything along the way, but if the problem started during the race, we would have seen the horse limping to the finish. If it finished dead last by a wide margin and fell down one quarter of the mile after the finish, then I would suspect the injuries happened during the race. But they didn't happen during the race. It was a freak accident after the finish.

As far as whipping goes, let's pretend that you're a horse. You're already running a long distance, you have a thick hide, a small brain, you weigh 1,000 pounds, and a 100lb. man is hitting your ass with a 2-foot whip. How much pain can you really receive from a person that small hitting you with a whip so short?

It has also come to my attention that some people find horse racing cruel because the horses can't "chose" whether or not to compete. Prior to the race, one of the horses (I believe it was Recapturetheglory) bucked his jockey. To me this is a pretty strong indication that a horse doesn't have to take shit from the jockey.

On that note, I would like to point out that these horses are a product of hundreds of generations of selective breeding and eugenics. They exist solely for this purpose. They literally live to entertain. Race horses are so fragile that if left to roam wild, they'd all die of injuries similar to those of Eight Belles and Barbaro. All we really ask of them is that they run and breed like rabbits. I would compare them to the Dinosaurs in Jurassic Park as described in the Dr. Grant character in the third film, "They are not Dinosaurs. They are genetically engineered theme park monsters, and nothing more." I foresee genetic engineering playing a role in horse racing (and maybe a few other sports) someday. Frankly, these animals are so far removed from other horses, and have had so much influence from humans that I suspect they're already monsters or sorts.

The important thing to remember is that humans selectively bred animals to serve as tools. Dogs have been bred to hunt (or if you're a quarterback in jail for trumped up charges, fight). Cats are used as a means of catching mice. Chickens exist to provide humans with food. I've never heard of wild chickens, have you? Today's cows have been bred to the point where you wouldn't recognize their ancestors. I can only love my pets as much as I love my 10-millimeter wrench. And I'm really attached to that wrench.

Now I'm going to end this blog where I started, PETA. You'll notice I emphasized "ethical" because ethics, like morality, are not absolute. PETA thinks "ethical" and "equal" are one in the same. PETA's co-founder, Ingrid Newkirk, has stated several times that their mission is "total animal liberation." That means no Kentucky Fried Chicken, no Kentucky Derby, no animal products used in medicine (like insulin used to treat diabetes), no service animals (like seeing-eye dogs), no honey (because exploting bees is a terrible sin now), and no pets. In fact, of all the animals that PETA "rescues" two-thirds of them are euthanized just as Eight Belles was. Please, don't listen to PETA; they're batshit crazy.