I CAN’T say for sure how I would react if I was faced with the body of a dead horse, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t sit on the animal and pose for a photograph. I’m also pretty sure I wouldn’t smile and do the peace sign with my hand. Yup, pretty sure I wouldn’t do that.
So, what on earth was Gordon Elliott thinking? When the now notorious picture of the racing trainer sitting on a dead horse became public, Mr Elliott’s explanation was that he’d been standing over the animal when his phone rang and, without thinking, he sat on the horse to take the call. He also said he wasn’t doing the peace sign, he was gesturing to someone to wait until he was finished.
Now, we all know there’s a hearing going on at the Scottish Parliament at the moment which is trying to test what’s true and what isn’t, but you don’t always need a committee to tell you how things look, and a grinning trainer sitting on a dead horse does not look good and the British Horseracing Authority knows it. They said that, contrary to the impression of the picture, respect for horses was one of its fundamental values.
Sadly for the BHA, however, this was not the end of the matter because, just a day after the Elliott picture was made public, another video emerged of the jockey Rob James climbing on a dead horse; you can also hear people laughing in the background. Afterwards, Mr James said he regretted his actions.
Without doubt, the people who run horse racing are furious, particularly as the BHA only recently launched a five-year plan on animal welfare. But I think the BHA used the word that matters here: respect. Animals, and certainly an animal as beautiful as Morgan, the young horse that died in the Elliott incident, deserve respect in death but they deserve respect in life too.
Let’s look at the figures. The charity Animal Aid keeps a record of the horses that die, or rather they keep a record of the ones we know about. Morgan died while he was being trained and there are sadly no figures on deaths in training. But of the ones we know about that die more publicly in races, there have been 27 fatalities so far this year – that’s about one every two days or so. Some broke their necks, some their legs, some had heart attacks, and it amounts to about 200 horses dying every year. As I say: that we know about.
In response, the BHA says thoroughbred horses enjoy a high quality of life. It has also published several possible areas of change as part of its five-year plan, including the improvement of obstacles and jumps and a consultation on the use of the whip. But, a year after the report was published, nothing has emerged yet. A whole year. Which means another 200 or so horses dead.
The question this raises is whether horse racing itself is morally flawed – in other words, is it based on a premise that inevitably means injury and death to horses? You may think it’s all worth it for the fancy clothes and fizz on race day, or any of the other things that are associated with horse racing and are pretty deeply embedded in British culture. You may also think young horses dying of heart attacks is a justified downside of an enjoyable activity.
But the apologists and defenders should think about this: the future of horse racing, like the future of greyhound racing, or hunting, or anything else that can involve injury and death to animals, should depend on a simple test: if animals are dying, is the reason they’re dying important enough? Does it add something to society or is it about something more trivial: people having a good time or making money (or in many cases, losing it)?
What I’m saying is: you may like putting a tenner on the gee-gees now and again, but who cares? It’s not a good enough reason for the deaths of hundreds of horses every year.
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