Racehorse Protection

Debate between Mike Hill and Philip Davies

Monday 15th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Philip Davies]

I do not accept that. Racehorses are not just trained to race—they are bred to race, and they naturally want to race. That is their natural state of being. I do not accept the hon. Lady’s premise that racehorses, if they were not in a trainer’s yard, would have no interest at all in racing one another. That is what they naturally want to do, and it is what they naturally do.

Someone mentioned the whip. I encourage people to get hold of a whip and hit themselves with it quite hard. They will find it does not actually hurt at all. Whips are not used for that purpose. If someone wants a horse to run faster, they do not hurt it. By definition, a hurt horse will not run faster, just like someone who is injured while running will not run faster as a result of being hurt. Yes, the whip is used to encourage a horse. It is often used for safety reasons, to ensure that a horse runs in a straight line and does not deviate and put other horses and riders in danger. There is a lot of misunderstanding about the use of the whip in horse-racing. Again, a horse will not run faster if it has been injured.

The hon. Member for Hartlepool said racing was run by the “blue-blooded” brigade. I do not know whether more than a few of us have met Nick Rust, the chief executive of the British Horseracing Authority, but I am not sure he would recognise that description. Perhaps he would—perhaps I do him a disservice—but I think most people in the Chamber would accept that he is from a very humble, modest and down-to-earth background. Describing people such as him as “blue-blooded” does them a gross disservice.

[Mike Hill]

Of course I recognise that horse-racing is not only the sport of kings—allegedly—but the sport of the working man. However, as a member of the Petitions Committee, I reflected the views of the petitioners. To answer the hon. Gentleman, yes I can ride a horse, but I missed out from my speech the fact that both the BHA and the petitioners recognise that there are issues with the weighting of saddles, which means the weight of the jockey is not natural.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for distancing himself from the description of the BHA as “blue-blooded”, which, as I said, I do not recognise.

The BHA puts animal welfare at the heart of everything it does. Anyone who has read its business plan for 2017 to 2019 will know that the first of its six strategic objectives is “equine welfare leadership”. I do not think anyone can doubt the BHA’s commitment to animal welfare. It has already started a huge animal welfare programme led by David Sykes, the BHA director of equine welfare.

I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury is, like me, a regular reader of the Racing Post. I am sure the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) is, too. He is a fantastic joint chairman of the all-party racing and bloodstock industries group. I am merely a vice-chairman, but I am proud of that none the less. I have to say that the two joint chairmen do a fantastic job. Anyone who has read the Racing Post recently will know about the BHA’s interesting initiative with Exeter University. They have been looking at how horses’ vision affects how they see and respond to their environment. They have looked at the visibility of fences and at what colours make horses more careful when they jump them. As a consequence, a trial will soon be run in which a yellow band appears across the hurdles, because the evidence from Exeter University is that horses are more careful when they see the colour yellow. That was news to me, but it goes to show how the racing industry is leaving no stone unturned to try to make the sport as safe as possible for horses. A padded hurdle design is being trialled at 11 jump racecourses, with the objective of reducing fallers.

The hon. Member for Hartlepool talked about the breeding industry. On 1 January, the BHA introduced 30-day notification for thoroughbred foals born in Great Britain so there is greater transparency and information about the whereabouts of foals born into the racing industry.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury made clear the number of people who are employed in the racing industry and the industry’s importance. Having owned horses—modest ones on the whole, as I said—I do not believe anyone is more passionate about the welfare of horses than owners, trainers and in particular the stable staff who look after those horses daily. Of course, from time to time, something happens to a horse that goes racing. No one disputes that that is tragic, but the people who are most upset about it are the owners and trainers, and the stable staff who look after those horses every day.

The hon. Member for Hartlepool clearly met various people and did some research before opening the debate. I genuinely commend him for that. I hope everyone present tries to take the opportunity to visit a racing stable and see how well horses are treated in those stables—how well they are pampered and how loved they are by the stable staff who look after them, the trainers who train them and the owners who own them. I often wish I was as well-pampered as a racehorse. No stone is left unturned in looking after them. They have saunas, swimming pools—you name it. They are rightly treated like kings and queens in those stables.

We should be immensely proud of how well racehorses are looked after in this country. I suspect that we compare very well with any other country anywhere in the world and I would be amazed if any other country had as proud a track record in looking after racehorses as we do. The Horserace Betting Levy Board has supported nearly 500 research projects on animal welfare since its foundation. Since 2000, the levy board and third parties have invested about £35 million of veterinary research funding.

Rightly, we are a nation of animal lovers, nobody more than me. As someone who has been closely involved in the racing industry all my life, I can look people in the eye and say that I think that the racing industry in this country is the best in the world and the one most interested in animal welfare. The BHA does a fantastic job in regulating. I am not entirely sure what an independent regulator would do that the BHA does not already do, given some of the things I have mentioned. Anyone can see that it leaves no stone unturned in trying to ensure that we have as few horse casualties as possible in the racing industry. Unfortunately, accidents happen to horses, but they happen when they are out in a field, not when they are racing. Many injuries happen when horses are just loose in the field; they do a lot of damage to themselves. It is terrible, awful and heart-breaking for everybody, but unfortunately those things happen.

We should not castigate an industry that does so much for animal welfare either because of ignorance or because people just do not like a sport or people in that sport. We should all congratulate the British Horseracing Authority on everything it does for animal welfare; without doubt, it is a world leader, and I hope that the Minister will echo that point.