Five ways to make horse racing more humane right now
Here are five changes that animal welfare organisations say
could be instituted immediately to make racing more humane.
1. Ban the whips
Under Racing Australia’s rules, a jockey can only use their
padded whip on the horse five times before the final 100-metres of the race,
after which there are no restrictions on the number of hits.
Prosecutions 'should occur' after footage reveals racehorse
slaughter and cruelty
Read more
Both the RSPCA and the Coalition for the Protection of
Racehorses say the whip could be banned immediately without detrimentally
affecting the sport, and they have found an unlikely ally in recent weeks in
the leading thoroughbred owner Lloyd Williams.
“The industry now needs to realise whips need to be
withdrawn very soon,” the six-time owner of a Melbourne Cup winner told the
ABC’s 7.30 program, which showed the alleged mistreatment of racehorses in
abattoirs.
The Australian Jockey Club, which has long maintained that
the whip is an issue of safety because it can be used to help “guide the
animal,” told Nine newspapers it would not support a ban.
Norway banned the use of whips in 1982, except in
two-year-old races where they are carried but cannot be used to make the horse
go faster.
2. Fully ban jumps racing
Jumps races, such as the Grand National, are banned in New
South Wales and Tasmania but still conducted in Victoria and South Australia.
A 2006 study by the University of Melbourne found that the
risk of a horse dying in a jumps race was 18.9 times that of a flat race.
According to the RSPCA, at least 49 horses have died as a result of
participating in jumps racing in the past 10 years.
As well as the risk of falls, the distances are also usually
longer than those favoured in flat racing, with horses asked to jump hurdles of
at least one metre over a course of at least 2.8km, compared to distances of
800m to 3.2km in flat racing. This increases the likelihood of exercise induced
pulmonary haemorrhage, or bleeding on the lungs.
Bleeding on the lungs is common in high-intensity equestrian
sports such as polo and cross-country. According to various studies, it is
found in between 68% and 90% of racehorses.
3. End two-year-old racing
Horses do not fully mature until they are about five, and
many equestrian disciplines do not allow horses younger than four to compete.
Thoroughbreds are worked much younger. To train for a
two-year-old race, horses are broken in as yearlings. Because all foals born in
a certain year are put in the same age class, late-born foals can race when
they are as young as 16 months.
“They are literally babies,” Elio Celotto, the Coalition for
the Protection of Racehorses’ campaign director, said.
But a study by the University of Sydney in 2013 analysed the
race records of 115,000 Australian thoroughbreds over 10 years and found that
“for those thoroughbreds that have started racing at two no ill effect can be
detected”.
The study still advised caution before racing a
two-year-old.
4. Improve post-racing retirement and tracking
Last week Racing Victoria announced an additional $25m
investment in the retirement, retraining, and humane euthanasia of racehorses.
Racing Victoria rejects outright ban on sending racehorses
to slaughter
Read more
It also promised an audit of industry retirement statistics
– which inaccurately state that less than 1% of racehorses go to slaughter –
and supports the development of a national horse traceability register, which
is currently the subject of a senate inquiry.
A traceability scheme would provide accurate data on the
whole-of-life trajectory for racehorses – and other horses – and provide the
number and provenance of horses killed at knackeries or export slaughterhouses.
It could also be used to discourage indiscriminate and
excessive breeding by requiring breeders to pay a levy to register a foal at
birth, and tackle what is known as “wastage’” in the thoroughbred industry.
5. Ban tongue ties
A tongue tie is a rubber band that is wrapped around the
horse’s tongue and then around their lower jaw. It is designed to prevent the
horse from getting its tongue over the bit, which makes it difficult to
control, and it is commonly used in both thoroughbred and standardbred
(harness) racing.
The racing industry says it also helps keep a horse’s
airways clear so it can breathe more easily. A 2002 study said that ties may
prevent dorsal displacement of the soft palate in individual cases but is “not
effective in the majority”. DDSP can limit oxygen intake and decrease athletic
performance.
Animal welfare groups have called for it to be banned,
saying they increase stress and can cause lacerations, bruising and swelling.
Germany banned their use in racing in 2018 and they are also banned by the peak
global body for equestrian sports, the FEI.
Courtousy The Guardian
WSB Whatsapp Support Number: 079 712 0818
