Two horses were killed on the same Yonkers card last night:
In the 1st, On The Brink snapped his leg – subsequently euthanized; in the 3rd, Fashion Shark “collapsed on the track [from an] aortic rupture” – dead in the dirt. Two more “athletes” whipped to their deaths so that some men could gamble while others (in this case: Michael Temming, Daniel Dube, Daniel Renaud, George Brennan) could chase racino-jacked pots of gold. This is horseracing.
On whipping horses in harness racing
http://www.thehorse.com/articles/35598/ohio-adopts-use-of-the-whip-rule-for-standardbreds?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=welfare-industry&utm_campaign=04-09-2015
“visibly injurious”, do these people not realize that injury from a whip is not always visible? Tissue damage underneath the horse’s skin occurs when a horse is whipped as well as suffering pain! If the whip doesn’t hurt the horse (as the industry claims) then why do they have Whip Rules?
And then you get the specious argument that “it doesn’t hurt them.” I had one jockey tell me “I once hit my hand as hard as i could and it didn’t hurt.” I won’t even rant about that as the ridiculousness stands on its own. Truth is that there is scientific, peer-reviewed evidence that a horse’s nerve endings are are actually closer to the skin than in humans. It likely hurts MORE than it would hurt a human. That said I think the whip argument is not the most important part of the article, but merely supports the overall inhumanity and immorality of this industry. The truth is that every day, on every racetrack, these majestic animals are being run to their deaths.
Absolutely, Ray.
Agreed Ray. I recall a jockey visiting my father at home and showing off his latest whip from Europe. Jockey said “if I use this whip on a horse on Saturday, he’ll still be stinging on Sunday afternoon”. He laughed about it – my father and I were in disbelief and disgusted. The jockeys have always known that whipping a horse with any kind of whip causes pain and injury to the animal – they don’t give a damn.
At last the scientific evidence is there!
Carolyn, I disagree with only one small part. I know at least one jockey who bought the bull crap taught to her by people she trusted in the industry. They told her it doesn’t hurt. They told her the horses “love to race” and the best one… “The love the competition.” As if the horse knows what winning and losing is… As if the horse can count the purse. But she was a victim of the shameless people who continue to “teach” this brutal practice (I can’t call it a sport) and truly believed it didn’t hurt.
While that doesn’t make it better, and ignorance of a fact it’s just ignorance not an excuse, I think the jockey you mentioned is a special brand of sick.
Oh yes Ray that particular jockey was definitely sick. Deceiving that young innocent female jockey was so very wrong – they have no morals. The jockeys know they’re causing pain both physically and psychologically to the horse and they don’t give a damn, I know that for a fact. If the jockeys had an ounce of conscience in them and genuinely cared about inflicting cruelty upon the animal, they would band together and say we are not going to do this anymore, it is a centuries old tradition and there’s no need for it and we need to evolve. We can carry the whip only in case of an emergency e.g. horse runs off the track and heads for the crowd looking to hurdle the outside fence. I’ve seen this happen when a jockey who rode my family’s horses, like us, did not believe in whipping and just carried the whip. He had to hit this horse over the head many times to stop it heading for the crowd. This jockey had applied to the Navy when he was young and was told he was too short and told he would make a good jockey. Never been on a horse in his life. To this very day he refuses to step onto a racetrack because of the whipping and the cruel animal abuse that goes on in the racing industry. He laments that he was a part of horseracing.
Agreed Ray it is definitely not a sport and like you I can never refer to it as such and I cringe every time it is referred to as a “sport”.
Carolyn,
On the subjects. I have heard of a number of owners that will tell their jockey Not to whip the horse because it will upset the horse and then they will not win.
Whipping is not only cruel physically. It is cruel psychologically as well as the horse is doing the best he can and to be whipped is such abuse and so cruel. It should be outlawed.
Kathleen, do those jockeys follow the owners’ instructions not to whip the horse?