Most greyhound races have been shut down by PETA and/or other animal welfare groups even tho they've cleaned up their practices and adopt out dogs, sometimes they still "cull" pups they don't think will make it as a racer and they can't stop on the track injuries. But now people need to scrutinize the Iditarod and horse racing.

The Iditarod used to be races with Malamutes but the breeders/racers now want bigger, faster dogs with more endurance so they experiment with different breeds. One famous racer was caught with a pit where he had been shooting dogs/pups that didn't fit his criteria of a racer. There are so many dogs bred, so few adopters it's almost as if they had no choice. But since then they've worked with adopters to use the dogs to pull sleds, and have sled races or parties etc. Still there was a movie that a team was stranded and rather than save their dogs they left them to die in the wilds of Alaska. I was upset seeing that movie which was a true story. Made me hate them more. [headlines.peta.org] I know PETA is a very biased group but they make good points.

Next we have the WORST of all racing and that's the horse races. For starters any horse person knows that a horse should not be ridden AT ALL until 3-4 yrs old. The bones are too soft and unformed for riding by anyone. They are first lunge line trained and after they reach maturity can then be ridden. The horse track if you know anything about them are racing 2 yr olds. There are so many injuries leading to deaths, or outright deaths at tracks and no one seems to be doing anything to stop it. [google.com] Horses are also prey animals and being in front of large crowds of screaming people, plus in contact with so many unknown horses is very frightening for a young horse and some are very skittish and feel unsafe-is it worth it? For the owner to gather hundreds or thousands of dollars to end up killing a few horses due to injuries? Also, they insure them to the limit so when a horse dies the owner cashes in Big Time! Some breeders awhile ago (maybe still) were killing their own horses by seemingly legitimate means for the money the horse wouldn't be able to earn, not fast enough or slight injury.
So what do you think of humans using animals for sport? Is it sport or cruelty? Is it our obligation to show animals more respect? Should we be a more empathetic nation? Considering the way people at the border are being treated it only reflects the other inhumane treatments we practice or not? Does one cause/lead us to the other?