While nobody would condone excessive use of the whip, as was shown in the video of Charlotte Dujardin just before the 2024 Paris Olympics, I’d suggest that we have to see this in the context of how horses are treated over a much broader perspective. One has to ask how horses are, shall we say, “encouraged” to lift their legs in such a pronounced manner in dressage. Groundwork uses a dressage whip to get the horse to take shorter steps and lift its legs higher. A long whip is used lightly to tap the horse’s hind legs to encourage elevation and rhythm, or so a paper on dressage training techniques I read says.
While Dujardin’s use of the whip was probably greater than might be expected, the use of such aids is not unusual to persuade the horse to move in a manner that, it has to be said, is highly unusual for such an animal. The use of hyperflexion of the neck is now considered inappropriate – the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) has banned the practice, but horses still hold their heads in an unnatural position during dressage manoeuvres, wouldn’t you say?
On the other hand, one has to ask how many horses died while engaged in dressage in the last month. None, as far as I can ascertain. Yet in the UK alone, 12 Thoroughbreds died or were euthanised while racing this July and, at the time of writing, there are three more days to go. Atts Edge fell at the finish, was injured and destroyed at Salisbury on July 24. Lope De Rueda was injured in the starting stalls at Pontefract on July 19 and destroyed. Twilight Vision was an unfortunate name for the horse at Kempton on July 10 who stumbled and fell and was fatally injured. Valsad fell on July 9 at Uttoxeter, broke his near fore cannon bone while in the lead and was destroyed. The same day, it turns out that Different Breed wasn’t that different from the rest as he broke down on a bend and was fatally injured. And Thaki was fatally injured in the starting stalls at Ayr the day before. We could go on.
If Dujardin’s use of a dressage whip to “encourage” the horses she trains warrants her being banned for six months, one wonders why the lawyer who publicised the video doesn’t also concentrate on reducing welfare issues in horse racing
The month is not unusual – 127 horses have died on racecourses in the UK so far in 2024. Yet has anything been done about the deaths of those horses? I think not. And if Dujardin’s use of a dressage whip to “encourage” the horses she trains warrants her being banned for six months, one wonders why the lawyer who publicised the video doesn’t also concentrate on reducing welfare issues in horse racing.
But it’s not only horses, is it? The Norwegian Society for Protection of Animals took legal action last year against the Norwegian Kennel Club, the Norwegian Cavalier Club, the Norwegian Bulldog Club and six breeders, believing that the breeding of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and English Bulldogs violates section 25 of the Norwegian Animal Welfare Act. This states that breeding that negatively affects the animal’s functioning or reduces the possibility of natural behaviour is prohibited.
One does wonder why just these two breeds are singled (maybe doubled given there are two?) out. Today, I saw a pug blind with corneal pigmentation but with such poor upper respiratory function that it really wasn’t a suitable candidate for surgery. Or maybe, actually, the half hour it would have spent intubated under anaesthetic might have been its most comfortable ever. What are we doing – or, have we done – to such animals, I wonder?
And though the situation with racehorses and pedigree dogs might be concerning, what about the chicken and pork most of us eat regularly?
And though the situation with racehorses and pedigree dogs might be concerning, what about the chicken and pork most of us eat regularly? I have to hold my hands up and say I am not vegan. But the chicken and pork I do eat is bought from our village butcher who sources his meat from truly free-range farms. Do the free-range eggs we see in various supermarkets with pictures of chickens pecking around in a leafy wooded area really come from farms where they can all do that “from dawn till dusk” as the supermarkets tell us?
A quick Google shows that 9.96 billion eggs were laid by chickens in the UK in 2023 with 64 percent of them “free range”. That’s 6.4 billion eggs a year and 17.7 million eggs a day. Can those really be clucking and pecking around in a wooded area as the picture might suggest? Free-range birds are housed in buildings with an exit every 15 metres. So, how much of their time do these chickens actually spend outside being free range? As a paper from the welfare group at the Royal Veterinary College suggested in its title, optimising laying hen welfare is “easier said than done”. All of which takes us back to the dressage issues with which we began this little perambulation into animal welfare. Any interaction between people and animals where animal welfare is not at the top of the agenda – and even maybe when it is – is fraught with controversy. Enough said – I’m over my word limit!
