On Racehorses

I’m keen to express some thoughts about the reaction to the two horse deaths in this year’s Grand National, and the subsequent cry for horse racing's blood. It’s driving me mad to try and hold it in. Bear with me – it might just be a complete load of drivel, and no doubt will be totally disagreeable to many of you. A bit of background first, to put all this in context. I was raised on a farm in County Wexford, of mixed pastoral and arable. We’ve always had horses, my Grandfather used to have some point-to-pointers back in the day (point-to-pointing is amateur jump racing) and now we have hunters, hacking horses and young horses who are starting their ridden careers.

This blog came about as I read someone say, on twitter, that the fact racehorses of grand national calibre live in relative luxury is irrelevant when discussing their untimely end. But, in my opinion, we all need to take a step back and take a few minutes to view racehorses as what they are officially classed as – livestock. That is, farm animals raised for profit, albeit not for meat in this country and without the ultimate 'goal' of slaughter. I adore horses – one day I hope to be an equine vet – and I follow racing. I fully support those in the racing industry who have been battling against the negative reaction to this year’s Grand National by expressing how much we all care for the racehorses. This is totally true, they are loved by their owners and grooms and the deaths of Dooneys Gate and Ornais are totally regrettable and sad. But I still wanted to look at the debate over national hunt racing in more of a practical view mind, by viewing racehorses as the law views them – as livestock.

They are, in fact, the most free range of livestock. They have shelter, time in the field to play with friends and roll and graze, the best quality feed as planned by a nutritionist, the least dusty hay in carefully planned amounts, fluffy straw beds which are mucked out twice a day, massages, physio, frequent vet checks, dentist treatment, grooming and petting... Quite an impressive list really. And not one you’d associate with any other livestock, free range or otherwise.

I’m assuming that the vast majority of you reading this are meat eaters. Cows, sheep, pigs – they’re all livestock that were bred and reared with the purpose of selling for a profit to be eaten. Believe me, every single one of these animals we’ve eaten has a personality, and was cared for as a new born by its Mammy, and was called for when it was weaned, and it had either satisfaction of its principal needs through its life or not. The ones that did have satisfaction – roomy shelter, correct feeding, space to roam – are known as free range.

Now, we appease ourselves by only associating ourselves with the satisfied, happy-at-death animals, i.e. we (rightly so) try to buy the free range meat whenever possible. We feel happier that we are consuming livestock that, although still ultimately fulfilled the task it was bred and reared for by ending up on the supermarket shelves, led a comfortable life up until it reached its end.

My point is this – racehorses are bred and reared to race. We would not have thoroughbreds if there wasn’t horse racing, just like we wouldn’t breed the lambs and cows at my family’s farm if everyone suddenly turned vegetarian. By including them with their livestock species, we see that racehorses lead a happy, charmed, and usually a long life in comparison to the rest - and they don't face getting eaten! The vast majority of racehorses will have cost thousands of pounds to breed in the first place. They would spend their early years gallivanting in the fields with the other young thoroughbreds. Then they could spend (I’ll generalise) 10 years working for 2 or 3 hours a day, getting fit, and racing say 7 or 8 times a year. They are prize assets, often selling for hundreds of thousands of pounds.

When these thoroughbreds are at the racecourse and are galloping, natural and enjoyable to any fit horse, and jumping, behaviour learned over hours and years of dedication, they are guided by experienced horsemen and women on their backs. The horses are watched by the professionals who train them and likewise dedicate 12 hours a day, 7 days a week to them, and they are followed by an on course vet and have many stewards and personal grooms waiting by to help in the unlikely event that things go wrong.

I believe it’s about 2 in 1000 racehorses who die on the racecourse. A low number, in my opinion. Many will die instantly, the rest have the afore mentioned on course vets, stewards and grooms close at hand to ensure their lives end as quickly as possible. The most likely event is the horse will return home to a bucket of feed and a big straw bed. Any horse whom the trainer feels “wasn’t themselves” will be extensively investigated by a vet, and they’ll be pampered by a groom. They’ll retire at, say, 12 and become a hacking horse and live for another 10 years before succumbing to old age or colic or arthritis and a vet or huntsman will be summoned and the horse will die. Yes, even the horses that don’t die on the racecourse still have to die one day I’m afraid.

The 2 in 1000 horse that died on the racetrack will have lived a lot longer and in much greater luxury than the free range animals we eat (once again, I promise you they all have a personality so let’s not pretend that horses are the only ones who do). Racing is a big business, with hundreds and thousands of people employed in it. Racing is not simply for “the entertainment of toffs” as I read in one tabloid, the races all carry prize money essential to stables and owners to keep the whole business afloat. 

The horses are bred in the first place to hopefully make a profit through racing, just like the way pastoral farmers breed cows and lambs to make a profit by selling. A cow or sheep’s chance of death is quite a lot more than 2 in 1000 – I’d say it’s about a 75% chance, since it’s mostly down to gender. If you’re born a bullock, you’ve got a couple of years of gamboling in the field and then you’re sold. If you’re born a girl, you’ve a chance of getting to stay and do just a couple of hours work a day (like a racehorse, I suppose) in producing milk. Similarly with the sheep, a lamb not chosen to remain and breed will have 6 months of free range life before it’s time to be slaughtered and fulfil the purpose they were bred for, as livestock, and to keep our farming business going.

I spend many weeks a year shadowing vets as part of my veterinary medicine degree. One of my favourite placements is with an equine vet based in Tipperary, who visits an assortment of horses ranging from racers to hacking ponies. Every single racehorse I’ve visited with him has been of excellent condition; the perfect weight, on a correct diet, fit as a fiddle, nicely hydrated, happy, healthy, sound. The sorry cases are the fat ponies left in a field to get laminitis. They are fed too much and their delusional owners think it’s cruel to in any way push the horse, or to make it exercise for more than an hour a day. These are the horses which deserve the welfare concerns, not the impeccable specimens that are racehorses in their prime.

There is so much veterinary research dedicated entirely to racehorses, honestly It blows my mind how many papers I still have to read on them. The investments in welfare are huge, with specialised rehabilitation centres set up for racehorses who leave racing and need to be re-trained as riding horses. And, importantly, many qualified, experienced equine vets feel that research has proved that horses galloping free experience pleasure – surely something that no other free range livestock get to feel during their lives? I know this much, if I could come back as any animal it would be a racehorse, as then even if I was the 2 in 1000 that died whilst racing, I would have been fulfilling the job I was born to do and feeling pleasure at the same time.

Thank you for reading,
Helen.