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By Olufolajimi "Jimi" Onadipe Thoroughbreds are a breed of horse developed in England solely for the purpose of racing and jumping. Most thoroughbreds have short leg bones, delicate heads, wide chests and thin bodies. When they reach two years of age, they are allowed to race and typically they spend their lives on the horse track until they are five years old. On the racetrack, they are whipped violently by jockeys to run faster. Whipping horses in order to have them race faster against other horses for human entertainment is a cruel way to exploit the breathtaking speed they are blessed with. Just like human beings, horses feel pain. There are physical indentations on the horses on the area of their bodies where they are struck. The whip is typically eight ounces in weight and about ten inches long. A typical thoroughbred weighs slightly more than 1,000 pounds. A common justification for the use of the whip is that such a large animal would not really feel the effects from the whip. Studies have indicated that repeated striking with a whip in the same area of the body can cause trauma and tissue damage 1. Another popular rationale is that horses are wild animals and the use of the whip is to control them so that they do not veer off the course of the race track. Dr. Wayne McIlwraith, an equine orthopedic researcher at Colorado State states "I keep getting told the jockey needs the whip for control…I think we've got reins to do that."2 Alternative options to using whips have not seriously been considered, although certain countries such as England, Canada, and France have recently modified some rules to reduce the pain inflicted by the jockeys. Some of these new rules include jockeys being prohibited from raising their arms above the shoulder when delivering a whip, limitations on the number of whips a jockey can deliver during the race, time length between whippings, and using whips with a soft padding. The padded whips were introduced to absorb the impact of the whip as it makes contact but as some Australian researchers pointed out, both types of whips cause indentation in the area of impact. The results from their research did come to the conclusion that padded whips have less potential to cause pain and damage than conventional whips. The incidence of injury and deaths of horses on the track is alarming. The most recent case that brought worldwide concern to the safety of horse racing was in 2008 when Eight Belles, a young female horse collapsed after finishing second in a race. She suffered compound fractures of both front ankles, which were so severe that the medical response team did not move her off the track. She was immediately euthanized. The New York Times reported that on the same day Eight Belles died, 15 other horses were injured at 39 North American tracks, nine of them so seriously they had to be carried from tracks in ambulances. When digging deeper into the situation, it makes sense because as a reporter for the Washington Reporter eloquently stated, the horses are “1,200 pounds of weight dancing on ankles no bigger than your daughter's”3. Horses should not have to race when they are two years old of age because their bodies are not fully developed yet to handle the tough conditions on the racetrack. Thoroughbreds have been bred over the centuries in order to produce the fastest horse possible but having their lives end via euthanasia because of an injury on the track is a tragic loss. The area of the track where horses are whipped the most are typically during the final stretch of the race— coincidentally, the area on the track where the horses are the most fatigued. This practice stretches the limits of the thoroughbred further than they can handle, and when the limits are pushed even further, the results are tragedies such as the death of Eight Belles. REFERENCES Horse racing. (2017). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/horse-racing/41106 KANE, E. (2012). WHIP USE IN THOROUGHBRED RACING: Is It necessary?. DVM: The Newsmagazine Of Veterinary Medicine, 43(1), 2E-5E. 1 McGreevy PD, Corken RA, Salvin H, Black CM (2012) Whip Use by Jockeys in a Sample of Australian Thoroughbred Races—An Observational Study. PLoS ONE 7(3): e33398. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033398 2 Roberts, S. (2008, May 26). Time for Some Horse Sense. Sports Illustrated. p. 80. 3Sally, J. (2008). A Chance to Revolutionize Horse Racing, Instead of Going Around in Circles. Washington Post, The. Thoroughbred. (2017). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Thoroughbred/72253 AUTHOR BIOOlufolajimi is a Junior Nursing student at Minnesota State University. He likes reading, playing soccer and traveling. Jimi has lived on three different continents (Asia, Africa, America) and has a dream of using his cultural experience towards bringing people together. Comments are closed.
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This is a website about nonhuman animals, written by human animals taking a Society and Animals class at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Archives
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