[AusRace] They never let up re crops, do they?

[Race Stats]

Len,
Has he been medically diagnosed as senile?
Didn't think so.
He never stated that Gai et al are physically and psychologically cruel to their horses, he said that whipping a horse to try and improve its performance by running longer or faster has no place in racing and would be considered cruel if done outside of an actual race.
I totally agree.
When riding horses, I carry a whip purely for safety purposes and so should jockeys.
A horse can feel a fly on it's rear, so to even suggest that a horse doesn't feel pain from a whip, makes no sense at all.
Smart horses dump the jockey after the line, some not so smart, tear suspensory ligaments, have heart attacks, bleed, and quite a few die post-race.
If it's not cruel to the horse, why do many stand flat footed at the gates (forgetting Chautauqua).
Why have the rules been tightened on the type of whip, the number of strikes, where the horse can be struck, and harness racing considering a complete ban.
Working with ex racehorses, I see firsthand both the physical and mental damage the use of a whip other than for jockey safety can cause.
Mostly the damage is irreparable.
Lindsay

From: Racing [mailto:racing-bounces at ausrace.com] On Behalf Of L.B.Loveday
Sent: Sunday, 26 August 2018 5:16 PM
To: 'AusRace Racing Discussion List'
Subject: [AusRace] They never let up re crops, do they?

Rex Jory is well into his 70's and somewhat senile. Does the idiot think Gai et alia are "physically and psychologically cruel" to their horses?

It's time for whips to be banished to the Sulo bin of history, Rex Jory writes
Rex Jory, The Advertiser
an hour ago
Subscriber only
*

  *   Top SA harness racing driver Dani Hill opposes proposed whip ban<https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/superracing/top-sa-harness-racing-driver-dani-hill-opposes-proposed-whip-ban/news-story/ad3f8023e6ee23eaec1bed4da58bd66c>

WHEN Winx won the Winx Stakes at Randwick nine days ago, jockey Hugh Bowman sat in the saddle as still as a garden gnome and guided the great horse across the line.

No histrionics and barely a flurry with the whip.

Behind Winx most jockeys were whipping their horses in a futile attempt to catch the champ.

But Winx was too good. No matter how many times a jockey whips a tiring horse, it won't necessarily go any faster.

It's time the whip was banned from horse racing in Australia. Whips should be banished to the Sulo bin of history.

The perception, and there's little doubt the reality, of whipping a horse is that it is physically and psychologically cruel.

Racehorse owners, trainers and jockeys would not use whips if they didn't hurt or frighten horses and presumably make them run longer, if not faster.

Winx is the greatest asset Australian racing has had, perhaps since Phar Lap raced in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The mighty mare pulls big crowds to racetracks whenever she runs, and commands enormous television audiences.

And it is here that racing is doing itself a grave disservice. In contemporary Australia, it is no longer acceptable to whip horses.

A jockey cracks the whip. Picture: Mal Fairclough/AAP

To a casual observer of horse racing, inflicting cruelty, or perceived cruelty, on a horse is obnoxious.

So, when people with only a passing interest in racing turn on their televisions to watch Winx - to watch history - they are forced to digest blatant and legitimised cruelty. Home televisions, with their huge screens (not to mention the commercial screens in hotels and other venues), pick up every detail of sporting events including horse racing.

Many people - and on Saturday afternoons this would include children - would be revolted to see horses being whipped in the final 100m of a race.

Casual viewers, perhaps potential converts to racing, will be repulsed and sickened by the spectacle.

For racing, desperate to increase on-course crowds, the whip creates an appalling image, a public relations disaster.

Why can't racing authorities recognise this?

But in the end, the debate is about the horses, not the image of the racing industry. The industry, as you would expect, believes whips don't hurt horses. It's a scarcely credible position, rather like the cigarette industry saying smoking doesn't damage your health. If we accept, for the moment, that whipping does not hurt horses, why have them?

There's an argument that whips add to the pageantry and tradition of racing.

Okay, carry whips but make them from sponge rubber.

In 1991 a Senate committee inquiring into Animal Welfare said it "cannot condone the use of the whip to inflict pain on a horse for no other purpose than to make the horse run faster in what is essentially a sporting event.

"Competent riding of a horse using only hands and heels to urge the horse on should provide just as an exciting race and may encourage more emphasis on improving horsemanship. The Committee would like to see the use of whips as a means of making a horse run faster eliminated from horse racing."

Horses are fun, joyful creatures - and don't deserve whips

No state government or racing body in Australia took up the Senate's recommendation.

The RSPCA website says: "The whipping of race horses is our most public form of violence towards animals. If horses were whipped in the same way, away from the track, it would be a prosecutable animal cruelty offence."

It adds: "2011 research found 98 per cent of horses were being whipped without it influencing the race outcome."

A decade ago padding was added to whips, jockeys were banned from raising the whip hand above their shoulder and whips could only be used in the last 100m of a race.

Hey, wait on. If whips don't hurt why pad them? Why limit the swinging arc?

As the Melbourne Spring carnival approaches, with saturation television coverage, the racing industry is facing a potential public relations nightmare.

The simple solution: ban whips from horse racing.

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