{"id":1875,"date":"2014-12-12T12:16:40","date_gmt":"2014-12-12T02:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=1875"},"modified":"2015-01-08T12:19:52","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T02:19:52","slug":"vet-ethics-a-quick-whip-around-the-racecourse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=1875","title":{"rendered":"Vet ethics: A quick whip around the racecourse"},"content":{"rendered":"Melbourne\u2019s Spring racing has again raised the question of the use of whips as performance aids in thoroughbreds. Jockey Zac Purton was fined $3000 over his \u201cexcessive\u201d whipping of Caulfield Cup winner Admire Rakti. For the same ride, Purton collected $87,500 prize money.\r\n\r\nLet\u2019s begin an ethical investigation of this issue by imagining the following scenario. Suppose we are hosting an overseas visitor who is unfamiliar with horse racing &#8211; let\u2019s call her \u201cMaree\u201d. Maree enjoys the atmosphere of the Caulfield Cup and the athleticism of the horses. However, it becomes evident that she is rather shocked by something we ourselves barely noticed &#8211; namely, the sight of horses like Admire Rakti being whipped as they head hard for home.\r\n\r\nOn the train home she bursts with questions. Does the whip hurt the horses? Isn\u2019t causing pain the whole point of such furious physical contact? Does it really make them run faster?\r\nMaree then continues, more pointedly: The spectators seem not to care or even notice that the horses are being whipped. Is it right for your country to allow this to happen? As a veterinarian, do you and your profession have a considered opinion on the ethics of whipping horses?\r\n\r\nWe may feel that Maree deserves an answer. But how and on what basis should we respond to her?\r\n\r\nFormer jockey Danny Brereton wrote in the Herald-Sun that whipping horses is, regrettably, part of a macho tradition in Australian horse racing, one that is unworthy of genuine horsemanship. Whips, Brereton wrote, should be used only for safety and not for performance enhancement. We should, on this view, follow the path of Norway which\r\nbanned the whipping of racehorses in 1982. \r\n\r\nThe Australian Racing Board, however, argues that the changes it introduced in 2009 adequately protect horses from whipping which carried out for the purposes of \u201cencouragement\u201d. ARB rule 137A mandates the use of whips with padded ends and forbids striking the horse around the head and abdomen; striking on consecutive strides; and striking with an arm raised above shoulder height.\r\n\r\nThe rule further bans whipping the horses more than five times in a \u201cforehand fashion\u201d before the last 100 metres. There are no limits to the number of strikes permitted in a \u201cbackhand\u201d motion nor of strikes in the last 100 metres of the race. However, the ARB contends that whipping under these rules does not cause the horses pain or injury.\r\n\r\nSuppose we look next to the AVA for moral guidance as we attempt to answer Maree. The AVA\u2019s policy on whipping states that \u201cexcessive or incorrect use of a whip on any horse\u201d is not condoned. It says that the whip \u201cfunctions as a training aid by being a tool for negative reinforcement\u201d.\r\n\r\nCiting peer-reviewed research by Evans and McGreevy, the AVA policy questions the claim that whipping increases a horse\u2019s competitiveness. That 2011 study found that \u201cincreased whip use was not associated with significant variation in velocity as a predictor of superior placing at the finish\u201d.\r\n\r\nCan we use the AVA policy to answer our overseas visitor\u2019s question about the ethics of whipping? Unfortunately we cannot. For while it suggests that whip use may be unnecessary (and therefore perhaps cruel), the policy conclusion is simply that \u201cthere should be additional research into the use of whips in horse racing\u201d.\r\n\r\nMoreover, the policy does not tell us what \u201cexcessive\u201d whip use means. Does it accord with the ARB\u2019s definition of excessive, or is it at variance with that stipulation? What we really want to know is what kind of performance whipping is reasonable, or whether it is simply unreasonable.\r\n\r\nConsider the claim that the whip is a tool of \u201cnegative reinforcement\u201d. According to behavioural theory, it is more accurate to call such whip use \u201cpunishment\u201d. A punishment is a stimulus that is usually aversive and that functions to decrease a behaviour.\r\n\r\nWhen we observe, for example, the whipping of horses pulling carriages or of donkeys as beasts of burden we are seeing the administration of an aversive punishment which decreases the tendency of the animal to slow down or stop.\r\n\r\nA 2012 study by McGreevy et. al. may shed more light. Using high speed footage taken of races, the study found, contrary to the findings of the Stewards,\r\n\r\n<blockquote>evidence of at least 28 examples, in 9 horses, of breaches of the whip rules (one seam contact, 13 contacts with the head, and 14 arm actions that rose above the height of the shoulder). The whip caused a visible indentation [in the horses\u2019 flesh] on 83 per cent of impacts. The unpadded section of the whip made contact on 64 per cent of impacts.<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\nAs the authors conclude, the \u201cresults call into question the ability of Stewards to effectively police the rules concerning whip use and, more importantly, challenge the notion that padding the distal section of whips completely safeguards horses from any possible whip-related pain\u201d. The Stewards, in other words, simply lack the technology and ability to ensure the rules are abided by. Jurists tell us that laws which cannot be enforced are bad laws.\r\n\r\nFurthermore, the Stewards are unable to police degrees of intensity of impact. As long as they remain within the above rules, jockeys can strike horses anywhere along a spectrum that runs from light impacts to very forceful ones.\r\n\r\nBut supposing, counterfactually, that the Stewards do have the ability to reliably enforce a range of rules limiting strikes, would that assuage Maree\u2019s concerns? The above study shows that the whip makes a substantial indentation in the horse\u2019s body. The authors consider this grounds for saying that it hurts the horses, not least because we already know that a horse\u2019s skin is highly sensitive, as can be observed when flies alight upon it.\r\n\r\nIn addition, the unpleasantness of the pain and\/or fear felt by the thoroughbreds is presumably exacerbated by the fatigue the horses are undergoing in the final stages of the race, and also by the permission granted by the Australian Racing Board for unrestricted backhand whips and discretionary strikes in the last 100 metres.\r\nSo, with this information in hand, what would our overseas visitor Maree make of the whipping issue now? Or more to the point, what should we in the vet profession say and do about it?\r\n\r\nSend your responses to <a href=\"mailto:editor@vetmag.com.au\">editor@vetmag.com.au<\/a>\r\n\r\n<strong>SIMON COGHLAN<\/strong> <em>has a PhD in philosophy. His doctorate addressed human and animal ethics and he has published in this field in peer-reviewed journals. He has a Masters in Bioethics and a Grad. Cert. in Higher Education. Currently he lectures at the Australian Catholic University. He is also a Melbourne veterinarian.<\/em>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Melbourne\u2019s Spring racing has again raised the question of the use of whips as performance aids in thoroughbreds. Jockey Zac Purton was fined $3000 over his \u201cexcessive\u201d whipping of Caulfield Cup winner Admire Rakti. For the same ride, Purton collected $87,500 prize money. Let\u2019s begin an ethical investigation of this issue by imagining the following [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[306,85,534,307,312],"class_list":["post-1875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-ethics","tag-opinion-2","tag-racing","tag-simon-coghlan","tag-vet-ethics"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":82,"name":"Opinion","slug":"opinion","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":83,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":94,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":82,"category_count":94,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Opinion","category_nicename":"opinion","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"Melbourne\u2019s Spring racing has again raised the question of the use of whips as performance aids in thoroughbreds. Jockey Zac Purton was fined $3000 over his \u201cexcessive\u201d whipping of Caulfield Cup winner Admire Rakti. For the same ride, Purton collected $87,500 prize money. Let\u2019s begin an ethical investigation of this issue by imagining the following scenario. Suppose we are hosting..","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"82":{"name":"Opinion","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=82"}},"tags_names":{"306":{"name":"ethics","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=ethics"},"85":{"name":"opinion","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=opinion-2"},"534":{"name":"racing","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=racing"},"307":{"name":"Simon Coghlan","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=simon-coghlan"},"312":{"name":"Vet Ethics","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=vet-ethics"}},"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1876,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions\/1876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}