![]() For example, the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) and the Australian Racing Board (ARB) provide detailed instructions on the use of the whip in racing. Various regulations govern the use of the whip in racing. The arguments against moderation in whip use are that whip use at the discretion of the jockey allows horses to give of their best.Īcross the various sports and equestrian codes, there is a conspicuous absence of any real consensus on equine welfare indicators, even though almost all equestrian and racing governing bodies insist that horse welfare is of paramount importance. Times have changed and concerns surrounding the justification for whipping horses are increasingly being vocalised by lay and industry commentators. The tradition of whip use in racing is ancient and reflects a time when any intervention on animals, however painful, could be justified if humans benefited. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. McGreevy confirms that his colleague Honorary Associate Professor David Evans was commissioned by RSPCA (Australia) to design this study and was paid an honorarium to undertake it. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: Dr. ![]() This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: Honorary Associate Professor David Evans received AUD20K from RSPCA Australia to design and implement this sudy. Received: SeptemAccepted: NovemPublished: January 27, 2011Ĭopyright: © 2011 Evans, McGreevy. PLoS ONE 6(1):Įditor: Colin Allen, Indiana University, United States of America This increased whip use was not associated with significant variation in velocity as a predictor of superior placing at the finish.Ĭitation: Evans D, McGreevy P (2011) An Investigation of Racing Performance and Whip Use by Jockeys in Thoroughbred Races. Horses, on average, achieved highest speeds in the 600 to 400 m section when there was no whip use, and the increased whip use was most frequent in the final two 200 m sections when horses were fatigued. Jockeys in more advanced placings at the final 400 and 200 m positions in the races whipped their horses more frequently. Measurements of whip strikes and sectional times during each of the final three 200 metre (m) sections of five races were analysed. We were also interested to determine whether performance in the latter sections of a race was associated with performance in the earlier sections of a race. Under the Australian Racing Board (ARB) rules, only horses that are in contention can be whipped, so we expected that whippings would be associated with superior performance, and those superior performances would be explained by an effect of whipping on horse velocities in the final 400 m of the race. Our aim was to describe whip use and the horses' performance during races, and to investigate associations between whip use and racing performance. However, there have been no studies of relationships between performance and use of whips in Thoroughbred racing. ![]() Concerns have been expressed concerning animal-welfare issues associated with whip use during Thoroughbred races.
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