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Originally Posted by Cannon Shell
If someone makes tons of money off selling the semen of a horse and then continues to run him and he were to break down the connections would be villified forever.
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I just don't agree that this would happen. If the whole breeding industry shifted to artificial insemination, I don't believe that most people would consider it bad form, just because he's become a sperm donor, to continue to race a horse that has a fan base.
Sure, I understand what PETA-type people might say. That the "greedy" owners not only got rich from the harvested sperm, they wanted even more money so they kept racing the horse until it broke down.
Some arguments against that are 1) if the owners were only concerned about getting rich, they
wouldn't continue to race the horse in order avoid the possibility of the sperm being devalued if the horse then lost races (the point you made above), 2) the money made from breeding is so much greater, it makes most, if not all, race purses inconsequential in the grand economic scheme of things (Storm Cat earned $570,610 on the track, but he was pulling down, what, $35 million a year at stud?), and 3) if the owners got plenty of air time and showed that they were continuing to race the horse for the fans and love of the sport, I think people would see that their intentions were pure.
You've got to fight demagoguery with logic and common sense (and good PR). If you make decisions based upon what you fear the crazies might say, then you've already lost the fight against them.