Readers' blog: Sulkies should be driven off the road
TDs shout about cycle rickshaws being dangerous, but sulky racing is treated with silence.
When we, the Alliance for Animal Rights, complain about sulkies, we are shuffled from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Transport to the gardaÃ, but no-one wants to know.
Sulky racing causes extreme suffering, distress and death to horses and also poses an unacceptably high risk to public safety.
Some years ago, a young horse was seriously injured when it broke free from a sulky it was pulling on the Kilkenny to Waterford Road and then smashed into an oncoming vehicle.
The driver of the vehicle was uninjured, but was shocked and upset. The horse had to be euthanised.
Children as young as 10 drive horses and ponies flat out on Ireland’s busy roads, risking the lives of road-users and of the horses.
One stumble by the horse can cause a significant injury to the horse or cause a serious traffic collision.
In January, a pregnant motorist was forced to swerve off the road, after she encountered five cars driving across both lanes protecting a sulky race.
A 12-year-old boy was killed in an accident involving a sulky car on a public road in 2016.
He sustained catastrophic injuries, after he was thrown from a sulky car, beneath the axles of an oncoming truck.
He was one of three passengers on the sulky.
At his inquest, in January, his family said they hope new regulations can prevent further loss of life.
The unfortunate horses are forced and whipped into a terrified state by the drivers for their kicks and no-one other than animal-protection groups has proposed that this stupidity be banned.
Who has heard of anyone being killed here by cycle rickshaws on public roads?
Have these vehicles caused accidents, disrupted traffic with their stupid antics, or driven into other vehicles? No.
Yet the weak legislators target the soft options and ignore the real danger to road-users and to defenceless horses and ponies.
All sulkies should be banned — whether racing or not.
No animal should be used by people for their life-threatening kicks.
