Former Exercise Rider on Why She Has Turned Against Horseracing
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM HorseracingWrongs.com
April 2019

"I have come to a time in my life where I cannot watch a horse race. It evokes too much anxiety and fear, flashbacks of catastrophe, so I close my eyes and pray only for the horses to make it home safely.”

In a recent Guardian article, former exercise rider Elizabeth Banicki explains why she has turned against horseracing. Some of the highlights:

“I have come to a time in my life where I cannot watch a horse race. It evokes too much anxiety and fear, flashbacks of catastrophe, so I close my eyes and pray only for the horses to make it home safely.”

“I galloped thousands of horses and so many were battling damaged and otherwise malfunctioning legs that one of my strongest general recollections is of working from on top of their backs to actively help them from stumbling and falling. I galloped horses who moved so poorly it was as if every step was a new agony. Their chronic pain coupled with the unnatural way they are forced to live can lead to depression, frustration and listlessness. Some horses get so angry they charge, teeth bared and intent to hurt, anyone walking by their stall door.”

“Horses that are chronically injured but still in training, still running races, are called ‘cripples’ in racetrack slang, and a trainer who engages in the practice of treating their horses this way is called ‘a butcher.’ These are terms all racetrackers in America understand. The rigors of training and running ensure that virtually no horse finishes a career unscathed and most are done by five years old.”

“Eventually I made my way to Santa Anita in Los Angeles. At Santa Anita I landed a job with a prominent outfit galloping some of the best-bred horses in the world. Though I was working on the top string for a prestigious trainer, I was not exercising the stars. Instead I rode mostly the ‘sore’ horses, the ones who needed nursing through their gallops. Some warmed up and their stride softened and found a rhythmic safety. In those cases, I settled in as passenger staying out their way as they trained themselves. I was routinely reprimanded for not making my horses gallop fast enough, because in my barn overall fitness took priority above the quality of the legs. If the legs didn’t hold up there was a fresh set waiting to be shipped in.”

“…when a horse is hurt, aggressively medicated, and forced to train and race repeatedly at speeds that exceed their natural inclination, then it constitutes abuse. The current standard in American racing – lots of medication and extreme speeds on legs too young to endure it – is abusive and the horses have no choice in the matter whatsoever. It isn’t simply an issue of animal rights, it is one of ethics and morality.”

“I came to a time late in my career when I could no longer ignore inside of me what I was seeing outside. The tapping of ankles on a three-year-old that released a projectile stream of fluid followed by steroid injections. Horses hobbling to, around and from the track. Young horses breaking their legs in half. I justified doing my job by telling myself, and sometimes others, that these horses would have to train whether I was there or not, and if I could make it easier on them by being kind, letting them go slow and cutting the distance short when I wasn’t being watched, then I was helping in some way to combat the greater doom they faced.”


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