In a Dec 2024 interview in Equus Magazine, neuroscientist and horse trainer Dr. Janet Jones was asked the following: “Do racehorses and other equine athletes have competitive instincts?” Her answer:
“It would be the rare racehorse who ‘loves to run.’ Most would prefer to stay near their buddies in quiet, safe places and munch on high-quality hay. What looks like ‘love’ to us may signify something quite different in animals with prey brains. In the wild, horses run when they are afraid.
“People assume that horses ‘love to run’ in races or that they ‘bring their A game’ to important events…. First, [this] is anthropomorphism, the attribution of human characteristics to animals. Anthropomorphism is very common and causes a lot of problems in the horse world.”
Then this: “Racehorses run because that’s what they’ve been trained to do upon leaving the starting gate.”
Not exactly a news flash, but nice to have nonetheless.
Excellent post, Elizabeth. Thank you.
Wanda, we observe & watch several trainers at Emerald Downs as we have ridden their horses in past years. One had been in Oregon & then went to California & then to Turf Paradise. Feel for any horses in the care of that Husband & wife team! Both people don`t give thing about the horses in their care. The wife has told us all she cares about is the win photos. The husband who we once taught some of his horses to be ridden “Did not care what we did with the horses” Emerald we have been told by older , wiser horsemen 18 years ago said” Emerald has to high a break down rate & is hard on horses” Mr. Sykes was correct! The wetter that track becomes the faster those horses run. Yesterdays rain had those horses running at insane speeds of 40+ mph! At times they even caught up to & passed the freight train operating outside along the backstretch during races! Emerald is just as bad as Los Alamitos. No grass anywhere to graze a horse. Lousy wood shavings for stall bedding. Shavings as stall bedding are known to cause higher incidences of colic due to horses eating the shavings. The use of shavings or sawdust are signs of a cost cutting equine operation in our experience.
I would run too if I had someone like that idiot Paco Lopez beating the hell out of me with a whip.
Agree, Wanda. The problem is money. It’s what people are willing to overlook in pursuit of it. When horses become commodities rather than living animals with their own needs and limitations, welfare inevitably takes a back seat to profit.
Agree. It’s not exactly a revelation that racehorses run because they’ve been conditioned and trained to run when the gate opens. What’s refreshing is hearing a respected neuroscientist push back against the romanticized narrative that horses are out there competing because they “love” racing or have a human-like desire to win. Jones’s point about anthropomorphism is important. People often interpret a horse’s behavior through a human lens, attributing motives such as ambition, competitiveness, or enjoyment without evidence that horses experience those things in the same way we do. Horses are prey animals whose behavior is largely shaped by instincts related to safety and social bonds. It’s also worth noting that horses confined to stalls for most of the day are naturally going to run when released. Turn a healthy horse loose after long periods of confinement and running is hardly surprising. Add a group of other horses running nearby, and herd instincts, flight responses, and adrenaline come into play. Horses are strongly motivated to stay with their companions. Some individuals run faster than others, some slower, but they all tend to move with the group. Diet is another factor often overlooked. Equine athletes are typically fed high energy rations. Between genetics, conditioning, confinement, social instincts, adrenaline, and nutrition, there are plenty of explanations for why racehorses run that don’t require assuming they possess a human-like love of competition or desire to win.
The people of the racing industry might as well say that horses love to be confined to 100 square feet to 144 square feet of stall space for twenty-three hours a day, seven days a week because that is not true.
They might as well say that horses love to be whipped with a riding crop and shocked with electric shocking devices because that is also not true.
The greedy people in this industry love money and it shows; the love of money is the root of evil.