My Views On Horse Racing In Australia

How would you feel if you were constantly whipped and were constantly injured 24/7 in your own home, on the racetrack and on live television for millions to see? Only to be fatally injured, consumed by your owners or possibly die just for the sole purpose of the entertainment of others and for there to be no way of escape from this lifestyle. This is what it is exactly like for racehorses.

In this essay I will outline my viewpoint on horse racing in Australia. This issue has risen after the 2018 Melbourne Cup in which a four-year-old horse “The Cliffs of Moher” broke down suffering a fractured right shoulder and had been euthanised. This served as a major wake up call to the horse racing industry and in particular the treatment of the horses. In a 2018 study conducted on 350 horses to assess the visible impact of whip use on them, in Australia, showed that “whipping caused a visual indentation on the horse in 83% of impacts” and it has been suggested that we should not try to look for any alternative methods but to ban horse racing all together. On the other hand, some people argue that horse racing should not be banned because if a jockey uses a padded whip, horses’ injuries could decrease significantly. Thus, a horse will not feel pain anymore. However, in the study conducted by McGreevy (2018), the unpadded section of the whip made contact in 64% of the impacts. This means even though it may be less painful than the totally unpadded whip, it still causes pain. Additionally, an effective connection between a jockey and a horse relies on the number of whips that jokey hits and the pain inflicted as a result, a jockey will not use a padded whip that does not inflict a bit of pain on the horse because it will be ineffective. Thus, a horse will feel pain whether the whip is padded or not because the jockey wants to assure that a whipping is painful and effective in make a horse runs faster. Hence, if we want to help and protect horses’ lives, we must ban horse racing.

This lack of authorization is strange, as racing also represents an important element of our national gambling problem. The exclusion of horse racing from Australia's ethical dialogue is a blind spot that needs to be considered, particularly in light of the recent near hysteria about the slaughter practices of 'our' cattle overseas. The track is big business in Australia. Last year, we hosted nearly 19,000 professional races, 11 per cent of the global total. Gambling and thoroughbred racing are inseparable in Australia. During the last decade, racing's gambling turnover has gone from $12 to $20 billion. Expenditure on gambling as a proportion of household discretionary spending has almost doubled since the 1980s, driven by deregulation and new ubiquitous ways to bet. Online gambling tears down all sorts of spatial barriers: you don't need to reach the nearest TAB to bet. Like with pokies, racing perpetuates the hold of the gambling industry over leisure markets in Australia. As demonstrated in numerous studies, this unproductive expenditure leads to the disruption of family and community life. Racing is also inherently wasteful of life. Almost half of the foals produced in Australia are not live births, and competition for a smaller number of more lucrative prizes means that most horses never make the cut to be a champion. Over 10,000 will be sent to the slaughterhouse this year alone. If you've ever wanted to own a share in a racehorse, look at that can of dog food sitting on your shelf. You're already part of the industry. At its heart, racing is a cruel sport that uses animals for our pleasure. Horses are bred, trained and forced to perform an unnatural spectacle. Races reaffirm the domination of humans over animals. Through these rituals, we proclaim Nature is there to be tamed and exploited. It is strange that it is the shady presence of gambling that makes this apparently okay.