This letter was published in the National Post under my 'other' name. But the edit was so bad I felt I owed it to my readers, fans, and detractors, to re-publish it here, if only so the context is fleshed out.
The link to the article in the National Post (published date July 18, 2012) is: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/07/18/todays-letters-do-we-ban-chuckwagon-races/
I don't know how long the link will last, as they tend to expire after a while, so enjoy it while you can. As for the rest, normally the National Post does a good job of editing my letters but, in this case, I felt they really dropped the ball. Read on to the 'as sent' copy below and judge for yourselves.
July 13 2012
Dear Editor,
I've never been a big fan of the Calgary Stampede. To me, it's always been bloated festival of
silliness and Western (American) cliché’s that were imported by Guy Weadick and
had little to do with Alberta or Canada. But I am also not a fan of the annual
cries of 'Animal Rights' Activists who scream 'stop the Chuck wagon Races'
whenever a horse dies during a race.
Tragic as these deaths are, horse racing, east or west, has
a long established tradition in Canada and like every high-risk event or
spectacle, tragedies happen. According
to Race Horse Death Watch, "420 horses are raced to death every year. About 38 per cent die on racecourses, while
the others are destroyed as a result of training injuries, or are killed
because they are no longer commercially viable."
The deaths, this year, of a few horses, though sad, is
relatively minor. And while it may seem ‘inhumane’ in our modern world to
harness our four-legged friends and make them race around a track, its been
going on long before there was a Calgary Stampede.
Even our Queen loves and races horses; her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh was an avid polo player before injury sidelined him. And what of traditional events like the Queen’s Plate and the Kentucky Derby? Should these also be banned because a horse might get killed?
The whole argument is as spurious now as it is every year.
Though people, like me, find the whole idea of a ‘rodeo’ rather quaint (if not
utterly ridiculous in our modern world), banning the Chuck wagon races, which
thrill millions of people every year, is even more asinine than the Stampede
itself.
If, therefore, people really want to protect horses, they
should stop focussing on this one event and focus on banning horse racing as a
whole. Otherwise they should just shut
up and find something else to complain about.
Sincerely,
I.M. Ulysses
