DEDICATED HORSE WELFARE.

​I may be wrong, I am sometimes, but what I think is happening since the Cheltenham Festival came to a close is that the powers-that-be are encouraging or pressurising horse racings non-hands-on ‘stakeholders’ to rally behind the B.H.A.’s views on horse welfare and to criticize the stance of trainers, jockeys, retired trainers and retired jockeys, on the same issue. It may be controversial to say so but I do not believe anything the B.H.A. instigated at Cheltenham was worth a heap of beans to the welfare of horses. It was, at best, window dressing and worst an insult to the intelligence and professionalism of trainers both on these shores and Ireland. The crusade the B.H.A. are involved with at present, as worthy as it is noble, is to prevent horses being seriously injured or killed in full view of public scrutiny. As sad as it is to say, as much as everyone in the sport would want it otherwise, there is nothing anyone can do to stop horses being fatally injured in pursuit of our sport, neither over jumps nor on the flat. Such fatalities cannot be prevented whether the horses in question are involved in show-jumping, dressage, grazing in a field, on stud farms, foaling, hacking down a road or while at rest in their stables. Nil per cent fatalities is an impossible target. Life just isn’t like that.
What is totally wrong with the B.H.A.’s approach to horse welfare is that they are the ones driving the issue. They have cocked-up so often during the past twelve months that it is asking too much of racing professionals to fall into rank behind their leadership. What is required, in this the most important issue of racing’s present and future, is a united front and to achieve the aim of everyone singing from the same hymn-sheet is to consult, talk, negotiate, listen, respect and exchange knowledge. Jaw-jaw, as Churchill once said, not war-war, which seems the B.H.A.’s favourite method of governance. To have the public, and the politicians, apparently, believing in our commitment to better horse welfare, our initiatives must be far more representative of our sport than the window dressing indulged in thus far by the B.H.A..
I will now put forward two practical suggestions that if implemented will impress on anyone with an open mind that as a sport we are very much horse welfare orientated.
Firstly, the reintroduction of a ‘distance judge’, as was once the situation at Aintree, where a judge sits in an appropriate place in the home straight and flags down any horses that are more than an agreed distance behind the horse at the head of the race or that has reached the winning post. The discrepancy between ‘riding to achieve the best possible finishing position’, the rights of punters to collect on each-way bets and horse welfare will be alleviated if which ever horse is 2nd, 3rd or 4th at the point the ‘distance judge’ signals the end of the race will be placed in those positions and not deemed to have ‘pulled-up’.
Secondly, and this will involve cost and perhaps a leap of faith, though I am sure the B.H.A. will listen to any idea that helps them defeat the anti-racing lobby within the Labour Party.
Where racing in the past has always lagged behind when it comes to horse welfare – the official line was always ‘it’s none of our business what owners decide to do with horses no longer deemed fit for racing’ – is the horse once it leaves the stables of a licensed trainer. The rehabilitation of horses has come on in leaps and bounds in recent years, with the thoroughbred now seen as an asset in many other strands of equestrianism. The ex-racehorse is best suited to the hunting field, of course, though there lies the minefield that is the killing of foxes and deer. My suggestion is that Drag Hunts are set-up by the B.H.A. and other ‘stakeholder’ groups to have in place a suitable domain for ex-racehorses.
These Drag Hunts will employ local people and because there would be no hounds or killing of other animals would in time achieve a following by people pleased to see old favourites happy in their retirement. Trainers could use meets to give a ‘day out’ to a horse in need of a change of scenery or to help educate younger horses. Subscriptions would off-set costs, with the added bonus of some kind of ‘point-to-point’ event at the end of the season. These racehorse Drag Hunts would not be of the cosmetic kind so far favoured by the B.H.A. but a hands-on pro-active horse-racing initiative, a left-field idea to improve the lives of retired racehorses.
We cannot allow either Westminster or sadly the B.H.A. to drive this issue. If trainers, jockeys and owners are 100% committed to horse welfare they must pitch ideas on how to go forward on this issue. I have long now proclaimed that the future of our sport is feminine – I too often use the rather crude expression ‘I have seen the future and it has no testicles’ – simply because females are more open to expressing tenderness and love of their horses. As much as I admire Ruby Walsh’s frank and honest opinions, he would not be the best person nowadays to be racing’s spokesperson. We no longer live in the time when Men were Men, tears were a sign of weakness and the death of an animal an event of no consequence.