Sunday 3rd April saw me heading towards a church with a long
history…   Bathgate Christian Spiritualist Church was founded in 1946 by Mr & Mrs Henry Thomson, Mrs McDonald and Mrs Charlotte Fairie.  The church was passed to the descendants of Mrs Fairie, Mary and the Rev Brian Pitt in 1977 and has been in their care and keeping ever since.  Brian and Mary’s daughter the Rev Mhairi Derby-Pitt is very active with church work and in the Community
Monday evening I was at the Cumnock Spiritualist church and received the usual warm welcome.  It is good to see Spiritualism being so successful in this area, as at one time there was a gap between the Ayr and Dumfries as far as Spiritualist Churches were concerned.  Now we have Cumnock, Catrine and Stranraer which are all well attended.
Thursday getting to Scottish Progressive Spiritualist Church at Langside Halls in Glasgow was a nightmare, because of a long diversion that crawled along at a snail’s pace. Then when arriving it took over twenty minutes to get the car parked in the Shawlands Cross area.  There was a good turn out and maybe that was the reason for no parking place for me, the congregation had taken them all.  I hope a good night was had by all.  President Anne McCucheon was looking well after her recent operation.
Two campaigns that I have been involved with for many years are the plight of the Tibetan people and the suffering of racehorses.  It is the latter that took up my full attention this week, and especially the Aintree’s Grand National meeting.  This a meeting where there have been THIRTY-THREE tragedies in the past ELEVEN YEARS   

This year one horse perished on the course on the first day, two in the Grand National its self.  But the finish of this race this year was where the real horror was witnessed.  The winning horse was constantly given hefty cracks of the whip from the last fence to the winning post.  So bad was this that the winning rider was handed a five-day ban for excessive use of the whip.   Worse was to come when the jockey immediately had to dismount the exhausted horse, for it to be given oxygen and doused with water.  These scenes were barbaric to say the least and surely must be Britain’s equivalent to Spain’s bull fighting.

A more sickening spectacle was to follow as we saw on our television screens the back-slapping and jubilation of connections of the horse and others of the racing fraternity.  These scenes were beyond belief of an industry that says it loves the horse.  They have a strange way of showing it.

It is unbelievable that such a thing is allowed to happen in Britain in 2011.  Surely excessive use of the whip on a horse should mean that the connections of the animal do not make any gain whatsoever from that win, that the horse is disqualified and placed last.  . The rider of the second gave his hose a few cracks in keeping to the rules and he loses the race, is that fair?    I don’t think it is fair for racehorses to be whipped at all unless it is to straighten them out to avoid an accident.

I have always said that Spiritualism is the quiet religion, but if we are going to mention animals in our prayers is it not time we protested about the treatment of the racehorse in racing?  It is not just the Grand National that horses are fatally injured on the racecourse it has been reported by one animal organization that  676 animals have perished on British racecourses in the past 1490 racing days.  That does not include injury to horses that can walk from the course but will never race again.  Also there is the horse that falls during a race, there has to be a lot of pain for the animal as usually the fall takes place when the animal is jumping a fence at racing speed.  The commentator may say that the horse has got up and if OK as if there is no pain involved.

We all have our causes where we think there is injustice, I feel strongly about this cause and as a committed Spiritualist I feel that once again I have to bombard all and sundry with my complaints of what happened on Aintree racecourse on 9/4/11 and on British racecourses on a regular basis.

Anyone who feels as strongly on this issue as I do, I ask you to consider writing a letter/email of complaint to the British Horseracing Authority, RSPCA and your MP.  If you are not happy with the reply then keep writing and writing until they do take notice.

There is a young jockey in a critical condition after a heavy fall at Aintree of Friday.

I have included a couple of drawings by Kerry New – Psychic Artist on the ‘photo’s page’ this week.

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