At the “International Jockey Concussion, Safety and Wellness Conference” last week, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) and the Jockeys’ Guild announced a partnership with an “athlete-specific” company to provide jockeys with mental health care. Said HISA CEO Lisa Lazarus in the Thoroughbred Daily News:
“Jockeys face immense physical and mental demands – and their mental health is critical to their long-term success and well-being. Jockeys are highly skilled professional athletes who confront unique stressors. By partnering with Onrise, we are providing jockeys with a safe space to connect with professional athlete peers who understand their experiences, offering them valuable support as they navigate the pressures of this demanding career.”
I think you know what I’m going to say. One, jockeys are not “highly skilled professional athletes.” With whips in their hands, they are garden-variety animal abusers. Two, those “stressors” and “pressures” – this “demanding career” – are wholly self-inflicted. They choose to do this (a luxury, obviously, not afforded to their partners). Three, they are complicit in the killing of many hundreds of horses every year. In short, as long as they’re in the business of hurting animals for profit, I care not a whit about their mental health.
If there were mandatory mental health testing on jockeys as well as owners, trainers and all the racing commissioners and veterinarians, how many of them would be officially recognized as psychopaths and sociopaths?
I find it quite disturbing that these people celebrate their wins and party all week long and have no fear of being imprisoned.
The One who went through the agony of the cross to save all sinners demands that the faithful do compassion with justice. We all need the pardon of our sins from Christ, but we also have the moral duty and obligation to God to stop the rampant evil that exists within racing. Collection of evidence of the crimes that happen to foals and mares at the famous breeding farms in Kentucky must be undertaken and catalogued, (and most especially oppose Neanderthal breeders who don’t provide even basic care for the horses they use for profit). The focus should be on all crimes that are done to horses from the time they are born at the farm to the time they are sold at auction, along with the maltreatment that they encounter throughout their brief time on earth. Racing establishments need to answer for their acceptance of doping and killing of horses and be legally charged as accomplices in crimes that are Class D felonies. With regard to Race Track Chaplaincy of America these men and women are spiritually illiterate and need immersion courses in Bible studies instead of fawning over the likes of D. Wayne Lukas, Bob Baffert and others who need immediate judicial opinion and sentence of confinement. Race Track Chaplains of |America are not authentic Christians because real soldiers of Christ do not tolerate evil being used in the Three Kingdoms of God: Human, Animal and Environment. Lincoln abolished slavery, Chavez championed the rights of migrant workers, Mother Teresa saved the lives of the suffering untouchables, real Christians are appalled at the apathy of Race Track Chaplains who speak of Christ but refuse to obey His laws of compassion, rescue and justice.
I gotta tie in with Patrick: I honestly don’t care about the “mental health” of anyone who makes a living torturing and abusing animals, particularly jockeys. Having seen and read about what these little sadists do to horses, neither their physical problems nor their mental issues concern me in the slightest.
One thing is for sure, you can’t be a lazy, physically inactive couch potato and ride a horse without falling off at the slightest jump sideways from a horse that spooks.
The blunt force head trauma in physical sports such as football causes serious mental health problems and sometimes this injury from head drama can cause suicidal thoughts.
Mental health in any activity is something that I personally don’t think should be shrugged off. Sometimes I wonder about some of these jockeys; if they’re suicidal and they don’t care what happens anyway they are more apt to do something more dangerous during a race and cause more harm to the horse they’re riding and the horses around them in the same race. I think mental health is a significant factor but the larger concern is that the abuse and killing of the horses is a criminal activity that isn’t being recognized as such.