Racing: To Be or Not to Be

The racing industry continues to trouble me. Little about it strikes me as good, and yet I fear the entire Thoroughbred breed will vanish if racing is outlawed, and that would be a loss for mankind. The elegance and speed of the Thoroughbred serves as a heritage and a reservoir, a DNA trust if you will.  

Unfortunately, racing provides us with too many examples of cruelty, greed, and duplicity. Balancing that, at least partially, are stories of good trainers and responsible owners. Here is a story showing both sides of racing:

"Horse Returned, but Entry Clerk out of a Job

Real Estate in Boulder County, Colorado

This place just came on the market. I do not know if the fracking well across the street from this facility had anything to do with it being listed for sale. It's a nice place. 

Paragon Equestrian Centre

Second by a Beak

Trivia for the day:  Sometimes photos lie.

"Seagull Photo Finish: Bird Caught on Camera at Brighton Racecourse"

Operant Conditioning

One of my student/friends is now part of the elite Vet Start program at Colorado State University. She reported that defining  the elements of operant conditioning flummoxed most of her fellow students in her freshman course on basic psychology. The names for the four simple concepts lack intuitive connections for most people since Skinner used "positive" and "negative" in a mathematical sense--added to, subtracted from--not to mean good and bad as most people use the words. Consequently, most of the students in the class failed to identify what happens in the two types of reinforcement and the two types of punishment.

The blog Equinox Horse provides a delightfully clear set of definitions:

Positive reinforcement:

• A pleasant stimulus is added to the animal's environment when a behavior occurs, resulting in an increased chance of the animal repeating the behavior.

Negative reinforcement:

• An unpleasant stimulus is removed from the animal's environment when a behavior occurs, resulting in an increased chance of the animal repeating the behavior.

Positive punishment:

• An unpleasant stimulus is added to the animal's environment when a behavior occurs, resulting in a decreased chance of the animal repeating the behavior.

Negative punishment:

• A pleasant stimulus is removed from the animal's environment when a behavior occurs, resulting in a decreased chance of the animal repeating the behavior.

Not Exactly Surprising News

The economy affects horses. Big surprise, right?

"USDA Census Finds Less Value in U.S. Horses"

 

Reblog: Starstone -- Photos of How Show Horses Suffer

This is a reblog of the Stonestone entry of 21 May 2014. It contains vivid documentation of how horses in the show ring suffer.

http://starstonestenfalk.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/jbk-festival-torture-like-in-the-dark-ages-anything-goes-in-the-equestrian-sport/

Old Bad News on Andreas Helgstrand Resurfaces

This story's been around for some time.

"Story of Donna Unique's 'Missing Millions'"