The Culling

Thanks to online writing I am fast becoming a Jill of all trades. I’ve learned nearly everything from achieving transcendence to convincing fellow females to go out with me. This week, my assignment has made me an unlikely expert of horse breeds, 75 of them to be exact. Most of these breeds are the result of human intervention. Human meddling in equine affairs has sometimes been so extreme that there have been horses as short as 17 inches and as tall as 6 feet.

Breeders decide which horses can give and deliver reproductive fluids to create horses with physical attributes, performance traits and temperaments that are ideal for whatever specific purpose the breed will be used for. Those that don’t make the cut are culled. That’s just a fancy way of saying Simon (or Wyngard) says they have no talent, earning them unlimited passes to the pastures of the afterlife. Of course, other breeders simply prefer castrating undesirable specimens or locking them away from the company of the opposite gender.

For some strange reason, that is probably the result of my own unusual breeding, horse breeding reminds me of the Olympics. I got the connection after standing on my head for a couple of hours. Try it. The truth is though is that the perceived connection is a hypothetical one. I was wondering if the Olympics could have been used as a “breed” tester of sorts if solid proof had been found to support racist theories. Would the Filipino race have been gradually culled because of the lack of desirable attributes that could lead to a gold medal? As matters stand, most of our champions have already bowed out in Beijing.

But there is no basis for racist beliefs. The Human Genome Project says we are all 99.9% similar. Although the small fraction that points to our differences may have critical implications in disease treatment, environmental adaptability and PERHAPS even specific task performance (which means slight genetic differences should not be taken lightly in the interest of political correctness), I would like to think that Filipino athletes could have an equal crack at collecting gold in events where we naturally excel in if we had the same opportunity for training as athletes in other countries do. Our failure to go for gold has nothing to do with our “breed.” I highly suspect that if culling had to be imposed, the ones who diverted the funds for sports training should be the first ones in line.

Note: For an interesting account on genetic mapping and the controversy of racial differences, check Race and the Human Genome

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