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A shocking business

Announcement posted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Australia 11 Feb 2019

Dear Editor,

Once again, the news is full of stories about the horseracing industry. This is not surprising, considering the immense abuse that goes on there. This time, charges have been laid after police raids, which found four Taser-like "jiggers" at a trainer’s property. A jigger, the sports journalists tell us, is an electronic device that is used to stimulate a horse to run faster. It is used in training, and the action is simulated on race day so the horse believes he or she is about to be shocked. We are also shocked, but not surprised.

Imagine being pushed beyond the point of exhaustion: the bones in your legs straining to hold up the weight of your body, your bleeding lungs incapable of taking in enough air, and you're forced to keep running despite it all. This is what life is like for racehorses, who are too often chronically drugged by trainers in order to mask their pain and enhance their performance.

In fact, the entire horseracing business causes enormous suffering and death every year to thousands of horses. They suffer broken bones, gastric ulcers and bleeding into their lungs from over-exertion. Doping with anti-inflammatory and other drugs can affect their respiration and muscles, and pain killers will allow trainers to push the horse well beyond safe levels. Horses that don’t win immediately are often classified as ‘wastage’ and are sent, with the ageing winners, to the knackeries for pet food or on long journeys to abattoirs for human consumption. Government figures show that as many as 40,000 horses are slaughtered each year in Australia.

Horseracing is an industry, not a sport, and the persistent corruption scandals just emphasise that it is a cruel and inhumane business.

Desmond Bellamy
Special Projects Coordinator
PETA Australia
PO Box 2352
Byron Bay NSW 2481
0411 577 416
DesmondB@PETA.org.au