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Survey

Do race horses enjoy racing?

By:

EquiAbi (UK)

Date:

2012-Jan-21 at 02:49PM

Hi,
Recently my friend has been saying how much she hates horse racing because she thinks that it is cruel and I know that it can be cruel if the horse is abused and is forced to do things. But if the horse enjoys it how can it be called cruel?
Equi

Rudi - Pratteln, Switzerland 2012-Jan-23 at 09:40AM

I have no personal experience with race horses. As far as I know they often go beyond their usual physical forces. I think there must be a motivation they have. Recently I have seen the first time a training session of "free jumping". The horses pass a kind of street with the obstacles they can't leave. Some of them went through spontaneously. This open space seems to be attractive for them. One of the horses passed about ten times until he had burned his excessive energy.

Brandon - FmNM 2012-Jan-23 at 01:04PM

When you see horses racing it is due to their flight response being on full throttle. Horses don't run because they are going to win a ribbon, that is a concept that is alien to their evolution. Their motivation is based on the belief that the guy at the back of the herd is the most likely to be eaten by the monster pursuing them. Horses run through the pain barrier when racing, and can run until they break a leg or suffer a blown ligament or similar muscle injury. Often horses do not do this for enjoyment but rather as a reaction to the situation surrounding them. (there will be horses trained to run who enjoy their work - but this is the exception and not the rule).
There are a lot of practices that can be considered cruel in the racing industry, but equally there are yards and trainers who work within humane methods to achieve results (like any equine sport/industry).
There's a big question mark for me over whether horse racing (as a general sport) is cruel. The race horse is a powerful athlete and as such the potential for injury (& even death) are an accepted fact of life. Most extreme sports men and women (skiers, boxers, jockeys etc) understand this. Without racing there would be a lot less horses in the world. Also many great medical advancements for horses have been largely paid for (if inadvertently) by the racing industry.
On the flip side the large amounts of potential earnings make the personal happiness & mental well being of race horses a secondary concern over their performance on the field.
I could go on but this reply is huge as it is lol.
Like everything with horses there's no black and white answer to whether racing is a cruel sport. The same arguments can be applied to every equine discipline. In the hands of a humane trainer/owner I can't see a problem. Cruelty comes from the way we choose to treat horses rather than what we ask them to do.