Horse Racing Should Be Banned
All animals have rights. I am Ashleigh, I am an animal rights activist working with organizations such as anonymous for the voiceless, and today I am going to tell you the truth. Should our entertainment be at the expensive of horse’s life? The horse is NOT a willing participant; they are forced, beaten and drugged to run. This is cruelty. Horseracing is a sport in which horses and their riders take part in races, either on a flat course or over hurdles or fences, with a large number of people betting on the outcome. From December 2018 to March 2019 23 horses have died at the track, either racing or training. This is 23 too many! Horses are being exploited and killed in the name of sport, they are put through great stress and pain and there are many jobs in less cruel industries.
Firstly, horses are being exploited and killed in the name of sport and this needs to stop. Horseracing is a highly dangerous game for both the horse and the Jockey. The horse is in danger because they are traveling a long distance at a fast speed, which increases the risk of them falling, causing injury or death. The job of being a jockey is more dangerous than being a boxer. This is because riders are at risk of falling off the horse when other horses box them in and get in the way of their horse's path. Falling off the horse results in other horses trampling over them.
According to ESPN, two former Queensland jockey’s Ben Saunders and Wade Clasohm who were 54, and 47 respectively are both unlikely to walk again after falling off their horse during a race. Horses have no say in whether they compete or not and their death is purely in your hands. Horses are voiceless, and they are put under the pump to race with no say. Cliff-of-mother was a horse who competed in the Melbourne Cup and was euthanized after the race because of racing on an injury. This incident was an outrage and gut-wrenching for all horse lovers. If horseracing was not used for our entertainment this would have been an entirely preventable death.
Secondly, Horses are put through great stress and pain. During the last 100m of a race, whips can be used at a jockeys pleasure, which essentially means horses can be whipped most when they are at their most fatigued and least able to respond. This erratic use of the whip does nothing but hurt the horse, the animals are already running their hearts out and cannot possibly go any faster.
According to a new study from the University of Sydney, it is now evident that whipping horses does not even make the horse run faster. It has been proven that down the final stretch as the jockey whips mercilessly the horse wither slows down or maintains the same speed. Whipping only causes bruising and inflammation not the attention of the horse. Horseracing is no longer an innocent and positive sport for equines as it promotes malicious intent to inflict pain upon horses.
