The following clip is from Windsor Racecourse in England this past Monday. The horse, 3-year-old Master Zack, had been blindfolded to get him into the gate. He then, said Racing Post, “became unruly…and reared up.” When the gate opened, the jockey-less Master “emerged still blindfolded, then ran loose and crashed through three separate rails.” Apparently, he’s all right, but…
Both blindfolds and twitches are a shortcut to forcing a horse to do what human beings want the horse to do.
Instead of spending the necessary time and proper skills on getting the horse accustomed to loading up, a blindfold is used on the horse. Instead of taking the necessary time and using proper skills to get a horse to stand still for shoeing, a twitch on the upper lip of the horse is used to get immediate control of the horse. Of course, it’s all about control by whatever means and being kind and patient is not in the vocabulary of sadistic people. People have to be sadistic to whip horses repeatedly and incessantly to make them run faster and call it a sport. Calling it a sport does not make cruelty to horses okay for a second.
So cruel, so stupid. Unfortunately, not unbelievable. That poor horse warned them and of course the horse’s pleas were ignored.
Blindfolding of a horse before a race is just plain dumb & stupid! As riders we would NEVER allow this to be done! Have the horse accustomed with time & patience for what your trying to do. Currently we`re teaching a filly to enter our large, divider-less trailer with slow methods. “The slow way is the fast way” for teaching horses new things.
We have been out of the gate many times! Always hated having a starting gate crew member holding my horse by the halter!! Their holding always causes unneeded stress on a horse. When we taught Thoroughbreds to be ridden we had them used to everything & able to be ridden as basic transport if needed. Had to do that a few times.
What horsemen, right?! What a sick joke that so many people did so many things wrong in this race.
They don’t have to have starting gates. They could have the old-fashioned walk-up or run-up starts and no blindfolds would be necessary.
The five jockeys were unruly for not following the rules in a false start race. The trainer of the blindfolded horse needs to go back to school to learn how to handle horses except this is horseracing so throw out the kindness and patience aspects of horsemanship. Also, throw out the decency of allowing horses to grow to maturity before making extreme demands on their minds and bodies.
These horses should not be forced to gallop fast before they are matured at SIX YEARS of age.
The horse is alright? – did anyone involved think about the horse’s psyche, if THAT’S “alright”? Of course not…
Having seen this replay previously, the 5 jockeys who continued to race even though the flags were up to cease and desist kept going. Not a smart move…