Why horses are prevailing with greyhound racing on its last legs
The money, the chase, the whip. The thrill, the royals, the bookmakers. The spectacle, the finishes, the animal rights petitions.
For centuries mankind has devoted time to a cherished relationship with the animal kingdom, particularly dogs and horses. Consequently, it is no surprise that when it comes to sport, these animals are the ones who have established their place on the sporting pedestal.
The sporting spotlight of man’s best friend has only briefly shined as bright as it has for much-loved horseback jostling. While horse racing can trace its roots back to the knights of the crusades, greyhounds have only been tearing up tracks since July 1926.
Both sports have been engulfed with controversy over the years and both are backbones of the U.K and the world’s betting industry, yet horse racing continues to thrive and the greyhounds are left searching for new owners.
“Greyhound racing hasn’t had the kind of establishment help to defend itself that horse racing has had,” says Bruce Millington the Director of Sport at Spotlight Sports Group.
“The fact of the matter is that if you’ve got a sport like horse racing that’s got a lot of what you’d call upper classes going working in it and involved in it, it is going to benefit from that and give [the sport] some clout in the corridors of power.”
The passion that the late Queen shared for horse racing is well documented, particularly at Royal Ascot where members of the public could look into the whites of her eyes.
“Greyhound racing never really had that and so therefore when you had welfare issues it was probably less robust in its ability to defend itself,” Millington adds.
The issue of class is something that drapes itself over both sports. The traditional greyhound fan was working class, someone who lived inside of a city and races proved to be a gripping night for all involved, especially when the unscripted element of gambling was thrown in.
Millington explains that “all the papers would have had at least one full- time racing correspondent back in the day and they would have had a racing editor and given it a lot of coverage. The amount of space and time that places outside the Racing Post are devoting to racing has shrunk to next to nothing.”
Therefore, when both types of racing have faced staunch criticism from animal rights groups as well as large sections of the population, it was the working class sport that fell by the wayside whilst the sport of the rural communities and of old money brushed aside the claims like a fly with a horse whip.
On animal welfare, particularly that of horses, Millington describes a system that is not seeing messaging from those at the top of the sport, trickling down through the racing community.
In 2023, horse racing is facing a raging debate around the use of the whip during races on the animals.
“Its leaders get it, there is a massive perception issue and a huge optical issue with horses being whipped to make them go faster but the jockeys, the trainers, the owners and all the die-hards say, ‘what is all this about? They are getting upset and they never come racing so what is the point of it,’ but they do need to tackle it head on.”
“I would ban the whip from racing, I think it’s just not worth the aggravation. If you spoke to racing professionals, they would say that it doesn’t hurt and we’ve got one in the office and you could barely wake a baby as it is so soft and padded,” notes Millington.
The next step to this argument, that if the whip is so soft why does it need to be used, is usually met with a chorus of claims that it stimulates a flight or fight response in the crucial stages of a race.
Horse racing has already been preparing itself for a rule change that seems more inevitable than a distant fallacy. Young jockeys will prepare for the grandest of stages by participating in the hands and heels race which do not include a whip. There are several dozen of them a year and they look like authentic horse racing.
As such, Millington believes that if the British Horseracing Authority were to ban the use of the whip tomorrow, no one would give it a second thought three months down the line.
This is significant because the Norwegian government has already taken a similar approach. While the sport is somewhat smaller in Scandinavia, the move to a sport free from the whip in Norway has proven to be a success.
Hans Petter Eriksen, former director of the Norwegian Jockey Club, says: “We have never had any complaints from the punters, the best horse can win the race, even without the whip.”
The debate around the whip is something that has not deterred people from revelling in the excitement of horse racing.
“Racing punches above its weight on social media because I think there’s a real passion, if you’re into it then you’re really into it and there’s a lot of people who love it and build up quite a following,” suggested Mr Millington.
By contrast, greyhound racing has been nearly swallowed up. At its peak the sport had 77 licensed tracks and over 200 independent tracks in the United Kingdom. London was home to 33 of these.
As of September 2022, there are only 20 licensed stadiums in the United Kingdom, excluding Northern Ireland, and two independent stadiums.
Greyhound racing has not been able to drown out its opposition in the same way its stallion equivalent has. In 2020 a petition debated in parliament had the support of over 100,000 members of the public calling for the abolition of greyhound racing after the Greyhound Board of Great Britain confirmed 4970 injuries & 710 deaths in 2019.
Millington, who has been involved with the greyhound racing industry since he was a child, highlighted some of the areas of concern within the sport.
“When I first started as a kid one of the ways you could suddenly get a greyhound to improve its performance would be to give it a live rabbit.
“They would take a live rabbit out the hat, let the dog loose, the dog would chase the rabbit, catch it, kill it and it would come out for its next race and chase that artificial hare for all it was worth. Instances like that and the disposal of injured greyhounds, some of which were euthanised, do create issues.”
However, Millington remains upbeat that the industry can survive the bombardment it has come under.
“I defend greyhound racing very much because I’ve worked in it and I’ve seen the kind of love and care these greyhounds get.
“I do believe greyhound racing is run by caring people who want it to modernise, so I hope it can fight it off. It is not very encouraging that the RSPCA have said they think it should be banned but it’s a challenge to the sport.
“You have to operate in a sensible, modern and responsible way. If it can do that then I think it should be allowed to survive because it’s a good traditional sport, it employs a lot of people, and it brings a lot of pleasure to people.”
In sport money is power and more importantly, money can cloud over issues and make them disappear from the attention of the public.
Greyhound racing, while still active on a small scale in this country, has fallen victim to the working-class roots that the sport was borne from.
Across both types of racing there remain serious concerns for the safety and wellbeing of the animals involved.
As we are seeing across the sporting landscape it is the richer, seemingly more prestigious sports that will continue to thrive amidst controversy whilst greyhound racing has been thrown to the dogs for similar problems. All sports are equal but some sports are more equal than others.
