First, let’s be clear about what “cognitive dissonance” is.
The simplest way to define it is…
Cognitive dissonance is a mental conflict that occurs when your beliefs don’t line up with your actions.
Psychiatrist Grant H. Brenner MD, FAPA, co-founder of Neighborhood Psychiatry, in Manhattan further explains it this way, “The degree of discomfort varies with the subject matter, as well as with how well the person copes with self-contradiction.”
So here are a couple of examples.
How about the smoker who knows very well that nicotine causes lung cancer but takes puff after puff anyway to ease anxiety in the moment—and then feels a sense of shame and guilt?
“There’s some sort of discrepancy between what your values are and what you feel in that moment,” says Thea Gallagher, PsyD, assistant professor and director of the outpatient clinic at the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety (CTSA) in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Or take the vegan who purchases a leather bag, the environmentally-conscious guy who buys a car that runs on gas, and the list goes on.
Why do people say they go into the horse racing industry because they love horses?
Aren’t they aware that in every aspect of racing and breeding, they are being compromised and their love of horses is being exploited?
Perhaps it is incremental and they don’t notice that their values are being undermined
Are people in their own silos and do not know the whole truth?
For example, old brood mares are routinely sent to slaughter when they are no longer producing foals.
What are the workers told?
Are they told older mares and horses that don’t make it on the track or age out or those who sustain career-ending injuries have been turned out to pasture and retired?
When you love a horse and it suddenly disappears – what do you think – how do you feel?
When working in the horse racing industry do you simply have to accept that he or she has gone to slaughter?
There is a thoroughbred stud (breeding operation) in Australia where a large percentage of the brood mares are listed as having died at 15 years of age.
(Horses can easily live well into their 20’s and even beyond.)
Or at 15 they are listed as “retired”.
Unfortunately, they are sent to the Meramist abattoir.
PLEASE MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT
SLAUGHTER IS NOT HUMANE EUTHANASIA
Knackery workers will tell you that horses smell death and danger as soon as they enter the premises.
Other people say that horses can smell the place of death by just passing by.
Slaughter is cruel and inhumane.
How does someone who professes to be in the racing industry because they love horses justify the fact that the industry refers to horses they no longer want as “wastage”? [Learn more about horse “wastage” in the racing industry here.]
Horse rescues and sanctuaries are inundated with young and old race industry “discards” including brood mares the industry “considers” old.
Many horse rescues are left with the gut-wrenching task of having to say no to the broodmares the racing industry no longer feels are viable. Horses who are not really old, but rather middle-aged.
Rescues and sanctuaries often have to turn these horses away to keep room and space for younger horses – how must that make those caring souls who are running rescues feel?
How horrible must it be placed in that position?
If you work in the horse racing industry and accept that unwanted horses go to slaughter – please stop saying you love horses.
If you feel compromised, that you have been exploited to work in racing or breeding, please let us know.
CONTACT THE PM
Use the button above and fill out the form to let the Prime Minister of Australia, The Hon Anthony Albanese MP, know exactly how you feel about horses being slaughtered in Australia. Your note can be as simple as "I oppose the slaughter of horses in Australia, for...
ONE YEAR ON
October of 2020, Horse Racing Kills writes: In October 2019 ABC's 7:30 program highlighted the routine slaughter of racehorses once they are disposed of, creating shockwaves across Australia and the world. Their brutal retirement plan for horses had finally been...
TOXIC AUSTRALIAN HORSE MEAT
European Union Licence and food safetyThe European Union has strict standards for animal welfare and food safety and does regular audits. Horse Identification When horses are purchased for human consumption by a dogger, they need to be identified by a tag around their...
AFTER THE DOCUMENTARY
In October 2019, Australians were horrified to see The Final Race on the 7.30 Report (scroll down). It showed in graphic detail the fate of unwanted horses in Australia. It particularly focussed on the large amount of racehorses that were being disposed of with the...
BOYCOTT HORSE RACING
7 horses died in 8 Melbourne Cups. Do we need to say anymore? You can learn more about the horrors of the racing industry at: https://meetourhorsemeat.com/horse-racing-wastage/Join us on social media and become a keyboard warrior.
ABC NEWS THE FINAL RACE
I think they [the Australian racing industry] are purposely hiding this from the general public because if they were to know I don't think we would be getting 100,000 people going to the Melbourne Cup.This is the sort of material that will shake [the Australian horse...
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