Two bodies saying two very different things. I tend to side with the bias of the organisation that stands for animal rights over profit.
Horse racing isn't anything approaching a sport ... ... it's a passtime at best but simply a business in reality.
It's just money. And an excuse to bet. Simple as that. I'd love to know how many people watch horse-racing without any gambling coming into the mix. I can't imagine the numbers would be terribly high. It made sense as a sport once upon a time when horses were a big part of our lives. Now they're not and really we've moved on. Painful or not, I'm just a bit uncomfortable with breeding animals for nothing more than human entertainment. It just feels odd to me.
I thought the idea of whipping a horse at the rear was to make it run away from it...i.e. that's why they don't whip it at its front end, which would probably be a more natural position for the jockey. To me, if it didn't hurt, why would it run faster away from it? You would be in trouble if you whipped a dog like that.
This is incredibly arrogant. I gamble every now and then but first and foremost, I love the sport. I probably bet on 1 in every 40 or 50 races that I watch. I also gamble on football. Horses enjoy racing but we'll never agree. I can see that.
Of course it would mate, they're like a screw off car aerial .. ... hit your lass across the face with one and see how long it is before her bags are in a taxi
No, it doesn't mate. Have a read of this. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2011/oct/18/jockeys-whip-didnt-hurt
I have stables 100 yards away from where I'm sitting and loads of tack and whips. I'm making nothing up.
A jockey's whip is not widely considered to be a wonder of modern technology to match the iPod or the mobile phone but perhaps it should be. "It's your job to educate people," Jim Crowley said at Lingfield Park on Tuesday, shortly before hitting me with one. "The message needs to be got across. This has been blown up out of all proportion. Whips don't hurt horses." It is a line that has been heard many times in the debate over the use of the whip, not least during the current controversy over the British Horseracing Authority's strict new regulations on its use. It is also an argument that many people, perhaps, still find a little difficult to believe. If it doesn't hurt, they say, why use it at all? But Crowley is right. He hit me three times in quick succession on the palm of the hand yesterday afternoon, the third time "as hard as I'd ever hit a horse" and, thanks to the design of his lightweight, foam-cushioned whip, I scarcely felt a thing. It has not always been like this. A decade or so ago a fairly gentle swish from a heavy, old-fashioned whip with a loop of leather at its tip would have produced a smack with a real sting. The modern equivalent, though, is all about noise rather than impact. "A horse wouldn't feel it the same as a human," Crowley said. "They have a tough hide and it's covered with hair. This whip doesn't hurt a human, so it can't hurt a horse and these sticks have been tested and tested to show that they don't hurt the horse.
He won't answer. He also won't answer the question of whether it sets a bad example that someone is setting a bad example by whipping an animal. Irrespective of how much it hurts, it isn't necessary in any way.
Alright then, I'll stop listening to professional trainers and jockeys because you can see a stable from where your sat
