PETA Wants Black Caviar Statue Fitted With “Cruel Apparatus” To Reflect Mare’s Final Years
Ahead of the Melbourne Cup, PETA has written to Strathbogie Shire Council, urging it to update Nagambie’s Black Caviar statue to reflect the cruelty she endured in her final years as a breeding mare.
Black Caviar’s bronze likeness currently only reflects the abuse she endured on the sprint track, but we want racegoers to know that, even in disingenuously named “retirement”, Black Caviar was forced to produce nine foals in 11 years.
Our artist’s rendering illustrates restraints like leg hobbles (which are used to stop broodmares from kicking during mounting) and a twitch, which tightly binds a mare’s top lip to reduce the panic brought on by repeated and forced breeding. Anyone attending or betting on a race should know that they’re helping condemn mares to lifelong exploitation and forcible impregnation.
Because not every horse born is a winner, the racing industry is hungry for potential money spinners which leads to a surplus of foals not fast enough to race, and intensive breeding, as owners try to squeeze every last dollar from thoroughbreds. Aside from the breeding hobbles and twitch, PETA suggests adorning the Melbourne Cup winner’s statue with a breeding cape, used to prevent the stallion biting the mare, and a tail bandage to prevent injury to the penis of the male, who also suffers from the unnatural mating processes central to the horse racing industry.
Horses are gentle, clever, prey animals who crave freedom, but, in the racing industry, they’re restrained and whipped, forced to run too quickly on ankles no bigger than ours. In the past racing year, 175 horses died on Australian racetracks, at least one horse every 2 two days.
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