"Unruly, Rogue" Horses and Whips at the Racetrack

The Des Moines Register has an article up about the switch some jockeys in the horse-racing racket have made to so-called soft whips that supposedly "sting a horse less."

There's much talk of when and why which whips are "better." But of course, no one ever stops to point out that, hey, maybe if we have to force and even hit the horses at all, we're doing something to them we shouldn't be doing in the first place.

Some gems and translations from the article:

Terry Thompson, a jockey, rode last summer at Delaware Park, where the soft whip is mandatory. He said he prefers the conventional whip, because some horses didn’t try as hard under the soft whip.

Translation: The conventional whip may hurt and scare them more, in which case they're more likely--and more quick--to do whatever the hell their abuser wants them to do, to keep from being whipped again. But the "soft whip" hurts and scares them too, of course; it just doesn't make them "try" to escape as much.

Trainer Chris Richard said if he had a choice, he’d prefer his jockey use a conventional whip to make sure he can handle an unruly horse.

“With an unruly, rogue horse, you need a stick to get his attention,” Richard said. “Not to abuse him, but just to get his attention."

Translation: A horse who tries to be, um, a horse rather than a machine or a slave following humans' every command, who just wants to do and be what and who he wants to be, is a "rogue" animal with some sort of attention deficit disorder. Just because he wants to be a horse and have control of his own movements. Just because he wants to be in charge of his own body. Just because he dares, even momentarily, to resist being controlled, used, abused, and treated like a tool.

The take-away lesson here, in case it isn't clear: Don't support horse racing. Fight to shut it down. Even if we ignore all the many, many cruelties and dangers that we know to be inherent in the horse-racing industry, we're still left with the fundamental truth that the racing industry treats and thinks of these animals as moneymaking machines in a system that encourages punishing them--hitting them--even if they try simply to think and move for themselves, even if they just try to be horses.