SAVING OUR SPORT.

​I write again on horse welfare, a subject that should be uppermost in the thoughts of racing enthusiasts all around the world, and why it is both an admirable attribute of the sport and a weakness to be exploited by those people and organisations, and ‘Animal Aid’ come readily to mind, that lobby to have us made extinct.
Let me say from the outset that I am someone who is very much on the side of the animal, all animals and not just the racehorse. Yet to protect the racehorse and the sport dedicated to its survival I would fight organisations like ‘Animal Aid’ to the last drop of my blood. If Animal Aid meets its objectives no ridden horse has a future. Animals are mistreated all over the world and yet this pernicious organisation chooses for the purposes of self-publicity to befowl the good name of a sport populated by people dedicated to the care and welfare of animals.
I try to steer clear of politics but it is as apparent as snow on the ground that the British Labour Party has been infiltrated by ideologies that are a danger to democracy and liberty. Why should a political party want to have a sport that employs hundreds of thousands of people regulated by outside influence? The B.H.B. may be a lot of things, yet even I have never had cause to think they do not take horse welfare seriously. In days of old when the Jockey Club ruled the sport it was different. They had the mindset of Victorian aristocracy, with little thought given to how ‘outsiders’ viewed the sport. The Labour Party, if God forbid they came to power in this country, would set a graduating policy of equine fatalities for the sport culminating with the goal of nil fatalities. Nil! It is a target that could not be achieved for children riding Shetland ponies around a field! It is a tiger-trap set for us to stumble into.
We live in changing times. The horse, friend of Man for centuries, is no longer a beast of burden. Indeed, its use to Man has receded to ceremonial purposes only. If Animal Aid get its way the racehorse will become as rare and endangered as the heavy horse, a horse race as much an oddity as a farmer ploughing a field behind a team of Suffolk Punches. The sport, of course, has friends in high places, not only here in Great Britain but all around the world. But that should not encourage complacency. Politics is a highly manipulative business. Votes can be bought and sold. The good and the honest do not easily survive in a parliament constructed with shadow for mortar.
Now is the time for the B.H.B. and racing’s ‘stakeholders’ to get on the front foot. Horse welfare, not what is convenient for the owner, trainer and jockey, must become top priority, not in mere words but in deed and action. If white take-off boards, for instance, are thought to be better seen by horses during a steeplechase rather than orange as is used now, then instead of exhaustive tests on schooling grounds get them on to the racecourse. The same with the new form of hurdles. If they are safer then have them at every racecourse and damn the cost!
And the whip! How long has this debate gone on for? If we keep with the present guidelines, disqualification for exceeding the guidelines should be mandatory. No ifs and buts. Our intent should be demonstrated to the outside world. Hands and Heels races for professional jockeys should be implemented experimentally right away, this winter for flat racing and next summer for jumping. Jockeys must alter their way of riding for the sake of the continuance of our sport. Use of the whip will be banned, if only eventually, through Parliamentary Legislation. It is a foregone conclusion. Let’s get proactive and set a date when the striking of a horse for anything other than correction will be ended.
I am sick to death of hearing jockeys and trainers explaining away use of the whip with ‘its only for encouragement’, ‘its nothing more than a tickling stick’. If a jockey beat his children with this ‘tickling stick’ they would end up in front of a judge and I don’t think a defence of ‘it was only for encouragement’ would prevent a custodial sentence. In the eyes of the public, the eyes of our enemies, a whip has only one purpose. ‘To lash, to flog, to thrash, to beat’. Look the word up in a dictionary.
Our sport suffers from public perception. It is a sport for inherent gamblers. It is a sport that uses horses for monetary gain. It is a sport that abuses horses. It is a sport for the fabulously wealthy. The perception, as we all know, is wrong. It could not be further from the truth. It is a sport that places horses on a pedestal. There are more statues of racehorses in this country than of owners, trainers and jockeys, the Queen and Winston Churchill excepted. The money gambled is only equal to the care, love and concern for the horse and when tragedy occurs the tears are genuine, the tragedy on a whole different scale to the miss of a putt or penalty. And this sport is very much a working-class sport. Stable staff and trainers alike are workers and not nine-to-five workers either, and in the main people who attend race-meetings are working-class, too. Indeed, no sport is as inclusive as horse racing.
It should be enshrined in the rules of racing that the welfare and respect of the horse will always be the first priority and the welfare and respect should extend from birth to death and into memory, with the harshest of penalties for those who fall below the standard of care expected of them. We live in changing times: our future is in our own hands.