Jenny MoxhamMelbourne Cup
By Jenny Moxham
An Animal Rights Poem from All-Creatures.org

All of God's creatures have rights, a fact that most people don't seem to recognize. This includes both human and non-human animals, but not all of them can speak for themselves.


Melbourne Cup
By Jenny Moxham

Fancy clothes, outrageous hats
Beer and champers flowing,
Bets are placed and horses raced
Melburnians are glowing.

For horses whipped, with bursting hearts
This race that stops a nation,
Is just another race of pain
And heartless exploitation.

Horses can be whipped up to 40 times in a single race. 90 percent of race horses suffer from ulcers as a result of stress and unnatural feeding regime. 90 percent also suffer from bleeding from the lungs due to over exertion during training, and while racing. Most horses in training are confined to a stall for up to 22 hours a day.

This poem was published in the Geelong Advertiser the day after the Melbourne Cup, (6 November 2007) entitled 'The Cup: the race of pain that stopped a nation'.

During one of the races a horse broke his leg and was subsequently shot.

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