Danger Danger!

While everyone else was focused on the royal wedding recently, in Northern Ireland all eyes were on the North Coast, where an annual motorbike race is held. Not on a race track but on a road through villages, around roundabouts, under bridges, and so on. The only other race like it in the UK is on the Isle of Man. Here’s a video of this year’s final lap.
The thing is, people die in this race. Not every year, but it isn’t uncommon either. And some suffer life altering injuries--at a very young age. I have added this to the list of things I don’t like about British culture. Which also reveres steeplechases and horse racing (both of which can be lethal to horse and rider); boxing; dog racing; and bonfires. Modern rugby--a professional sport now involving performance-enhancing drugs, also needs to be on the list.
Is bloodlust part of the human genome? And what about the women who dress in their finery and their hats to go to races where horses will be whipped beyond exhaustion--some of these races are far too long for a young, not fully formed thoroughbred to handle. And what becomes of the thousands of horses that race at Cheltenham and the other races on every weekend? Exported for meat? I can’t imagine there’s money to be made putting out to pasture the 95% of horses that aren’t in the money.
OK, rant over.
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