A national disgrace.

Gandhi believed that 'the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.' This past weekend, at an event called the Grand National Hurdle at Melbourne's Flemington racetrack, nine of the 13 horses that began the day's big race failed to finish. Two had to be destroyed on the track.

A safety review of jumps racing has been ordered by Victoria's Racing Minister. Whoop-dee-damn-do.

For those who don't know, 'jumps racing' is a gimmick to get 'punters' to drag their sorry asses to the track in winter. The horses that run in these races are below-average performers. In other words, sacrificial lambs for horse owners trying to squeeze every last drop of blood from their investments.

Jumping horses are twenty times more likely to die on the track than their non-jumping counterparts. And as anyone who saw this year's Kentucky Derby, even the finest non-jumping thoroughbreds suffer gruesome deaths as boozy crowds count their winnings and losses.

Oh, but horses are born to race, race horse owners and enthusiasts say. You can't deny these 4-legged speed machines their chance at glory, go their demands.

Why are overbearing stage mothers who lust for fame through their children treated as pariahs, yet owners of horses who hire jockeys to whip their possessions across finish lines are society's creme de la creme? At least a child on stage understands applause and gains benefit from a crowd's adulation. A horse doesn't know from winning or losing -- it just wants to eat and shit and nuzzle up against another horse.

Not even this weekend's carnage has caused an uproar, however, and nothing will change. Why? Because Australians love to gamble more than anybody else on the planet. More than 80% of adult Aussies make at least one wager a year. Legal gambling parlours are as common as convenience stores. Outside of religious holidays, the most celebrated day on the Aussie calendar is November's Melbourne Cup Carnival. Revelers place their bets and drink all day long. Women don ludicrous hats and totter on stilettoes, flutes of champagne in hand. It's said that the nation comes to a standstill when the horses enter the starting gates.

At that moment, the blood of those horses is worth as much as Gandhi's words: Absolutely nothing at all.