LEONARDO'S HORSE

Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned by the duke of Milan to create a bronze horse. After years of work on the project, a clay replica was destroyed in 1499. Leonardo died before resuming work on the horse, and before it was ever cast in bronze. In 1977, Charles Dent pledged that he would build the horse and present it to Italy as a gift from the American People. On September 10, 1999, sculptor Nina Akamu completed Dent's dream & the statue was unveiled in Milan five hundred years after the French destroyed Leonardo's horse.

Leonardo da Vinci is widely reported to have been a vegetarian & to have abhorred animal cruelty. In The Mind of Leonardo da Vinci (1928), Edward MacCurdy wrote:

"…The mere idea of permitting the existence of unnecessary suffering, still more that of taking life, was abhorrent to him. Vasari tells, as an instance of his love of animals, how when in Florence he passed places where birds were sold he would frequently take them from their cages with his own hand, and having paid the sellers the price that was asked would let them fly away in the air, thus giving them back their liberty."

As I sit in my apartment, shrouded in silence as the streets stand still for the Melbourne cup, I cant help but wonder if it will take another 500 years before we stop using animals as a source of entertainment. The U.S. Jockey Club in New York estimates that around 600 horses died at racetracks in 2006, not to mention all the injuries that were inflicted. I know that the punters today will be greeted by a small band of protesters, I wish I had the courage to join them. Horse racing not only involves animal cruelty but is compounded by the evil that is gambling; many people will loose money today & for some it will be money that they cannot afford to lose. The online Australian reports that New South Welshmen & Victorians have already handed over $17.7 million in Melbourne cup bets & according to NSW Gaming and Racing, last year punters in the state (in the STATE!) bet more than $45 million at the TAB on the Melbourne Cup feature race alone.