Should Horses Be Kept Off The Football Field?
PETA has chosen a really dumb time to make a point.
PETA is calling for horses to be kept off the football field after an accident involving some Oklahoma hillbilly contraption falling over. Let's take a look, then continue.
As you may have noticed, it was the humans that were in danger and not the horses. The horses seemed perfectly fine. We here in Lubbock do have skin in this game with our own game traditions. In fact, we also have had one of the worse accidents ever with a horse bolting and dying after running into a wall, but let's look at the reality of all of this. Is there a smoother surface for horses to run on? The answer is no. No matter where you ride a horse, there are rocks, pits, obstacles and all kinds of things that a horse could step on or run into. In fact, I would say that a football field is probably even safer than a race track.
Of course, some folks are concerned that the horses get frightened by all of the noise, but even as a huge animal supporter, I'm not buying into it. I understand sudden bursts of sound startling an animal (like a shot or something) but that's not the same thing as a roar of a crowd. Instead of worrying about the horses, we should worry about engineering a cart that isn't so top-heavy that it spills Sooners all over the field.