Written by Notwithstanding the skills and athleticism of the jockeys, the horses are athletes in the horseracing equation too. The jockey and the horse are teammates in the sport, a combination of muscle, mind, skill, and instinct from both parties.
The horseracing industry certainly has its problems, these animals are collateral damage in a multibillion-dollar industry that is riddled with questionable tactics, drug abuse, cruelty, substitutions, and fixing, and then after all that many of these horses end in slaughterhouses.
Though many people involved in the industry love their animals, many are willing to push them to the brink to achieve financial success. Despite individual views on horseracing in general, and there has been a tidal wave of opinion change in this area, it must be acknowledged that a culture exists in the sport that allows this cruelty. It is not anthropomorphic at all to recognize the horse as athlete in this situation, and to safeguard it from abuses that would not be tolerated in human sports.
In the state of Victoria, Australia it is estimated that the fatality rate for a racehorse during a normal race is 1:1000, pretty scary odds considering that is for a normal, uneventful race.
Leading Australian trainer, Robert Heathcote, declares the incidence of doping in horseracing in Queensland is rife. Despite Queensland’s racing integrity commissioner Ross Barnett’s claims that there was no evidence to support the accusation, no less than 13 trainers were charged in 2020 for possession of unregistered substances. It must also be remembered that unlike human athletes, the horses themselves do not chose to take the drugs.
The use of the whip is limited but in the last 100 meters of the race it is not, and it is thought that the use of ‘jiggers’ is widespread. Jiggers are illegal battery-powered shock devices that were commonly used in Australian horse racing until video recording improved the quality of stewards’ surveillance. In 2019 Australian Trainer Darren Weir and assistant trainer Jarrod McLean contested charges pertaining to the ownership and use of such devices.
‘Tongue ties’ are used primarily as a means of preventing the horse from choking on its tongue during a race, but the system is abused as a means of control. When pressure is applied via the reins to the bit on the horse’s tongue it forces them to be compliant.
Regard for the racehorses extends to the transparency of activities surrounding the retirement of the animals. Currently, in Australia, there is a negligent lack of tracking which has allowed a cruel process that had evaded detection in the past. Not until leaked footage appeared of ‘retired’ racehorses meeting their end at the Miramist abattoir, were the horseracing mad community aware of, or had even perhaps thought of what happened to their champions when they stopped being champions. This culling of animals considered uncompetitive is referred to as ‘wastage’.
There is a range of issues here, the wider one about the safety and continuing validity of horseracing altogether is beyond the scope of this platform, but the culture certainly isn’t. These animals need to be recognized as deserving of the same respectful treatment that human athletes deserve. A toxically corrupted culture has no place in modern sports and leisure and the current views on these issues need updating. It has been ventured that horseracing has lost it’s ‘social license’, that is the tacit agreement between the community and other key stakeholders which addresses the dangers and special considerations of the joint human-animal sport.
“Discussing a social license to operate can cause offence and it cannot take place in a vacuum of leadership, but the difficulties are multiplied if no genuine conversation takes place.”
Organizations that regulate human-animal relationships in our changing world, particularly where animals are used for entertainment, must progressively change the culture or else face the prospect of being left behind.
https://theconversation.com/the-shocking-use-of-jiggers-in-horse-racing-111176