I Am of a different opinion how can one prefer to use animals for games it may not be healthy for the animal and I believe government agencies that regulate such games need to do more to protect the well being of the animals used for such games.
If you think that way, do you think the same for racing done by human as it may not healthy as well for human? Animal racing such as horse is done by professional, the horse must be trained and treated more than other normal horses. Starting from the food, vitamin, and all treatment.
a horse that is not healthy, not getting enough vitamins is just an murder if it is sent down to race, the same thing as a (human) running event in the Olympics or other championships
the pros and cons of accepting animal races on a bet will continue to appear, but what must be realized is that the participating animals are certainly very well monitored by the government that supervises
but I don't know with illegal racing, whether the participating animals are supervised or not!
More than likely, animals used to these racing contests at the spur of the moment are not well-prepared for their event.
So we don't know if those animals are indeed healthy and ready for this activity.
Horse racing has been here for decades already, so this one is not new and acceptable to me.
However, when you are talking about other animals like cow or other untrained animals, I don't think that's right for the owner to join this race contest.
They need to look out for the welfare of their respective animals before they think of the entertainment that it will bring to the people.