Current Affairs

RACING UNDER THREAT BY THE NEW PURITANS

One overheated facebook writer said that as greyhounds led “a life of slavery and servitude the whole industry should be shut down.”

That knee-jerk response is what passes for considered debate in the furore created by hidden film exposing greyhound trainers being cruel to small animals used as prey.  

Racing, including Greyhounds and the other two codes, Thoroughbred and Harness Racing, employs a quarter of a million people and is Australia’s third largest industry.

All three codes have been attacked by political and social zealots and no doubt will be again in the future.

After the 2014 Melbourne Cup, in which Admire Rakti subsequently died of a heart attack, Senator Scott Ludlum (Greens WA) tweeted: ‘We raced another horse to death. Hope there’s plenty of champagne.’ That gratuitous remark saw him labelled ‘a right tweet’ by the Executive Officer of the WA Racehorse Owners Association, Darren McAullay, also Perth Racing’s premier caller over the last 15 years.

Writing in Winners Circle (Summer 2014) McAullay asked whether Ludlum was serious in making that sort of remark.

Unfortunately the senator was serious, not that he should be taken seriously. In fact every time a horse or dog dies in racing there is this sort of outcry from those who have never thrown a leg over a horse’s back or trained a canine.

Animals, both active and inactive, do die of heart attacks, accidents and other causes –just like humans.

There would be no racing, show jumping, dressage and eventing sports if it was up to these new Cromwellians. The flow-on effect would see many of these animals end up as pet meat.

Why not ban Christmas festivities too, as Oliver Cromwell, and the Puritans in the English Parliament, in the 1650s did? That way we would save thousands of chooks, ducks and turkeys and we wouldn’t offend the two per cent of our population who are Muslim!

Greyhounds and racehorses simply enjoy running and they cannot be forced to do anything if they are opposed to the task. In 1980 this writer found that out when I took my grey show jumper, Dillinger, to Vern Brockman’s equine swimming pool. ‘Dilly’ simply refused to take the plunge and all the cajoling in the world made no difference and nor would any brutal treatment have changed his mind. You can take a horse to the water but you cannot make it drink or swim!

Certainly in the light of current revelations of cruelty in the greyhound Industry there has to be a tougher approach to policing greyhound racing in the Eastern States to ensure the revolting practice of ‘blooding,’ (where greyhounds are allowed to rip into live piglets, possums and rabbits, tied on a lure), is eradicated. Severe legal and industry penalties, with ensuing media publicity, would help in the process.

Zero tolerance in this area would work because it has overwhelming community support and clearly more rigorous policing is also desired.

It should not however result in the closure of greyhound racing because that is an overreaction.

Carlos Martins, the Chief Greyhound Steward in WA, is the longest ‘chief stipe’ in the nation. Early in his career the ex-Zimbabwean acted promptly to close down the sort of activity bedevilling the sport in the Eastern States.

In 1990, Martins carried out surveillance on the Bushmead track, and acting in concert with WA police, got the same sort of result that the ABC Four Corners team achieved, recently.

Some thought, at the time, he was too tough and that he should have warned the offenders off by informing them that they were being watched. That is as mad a suggestion as the police should tip off drug dealers before a raid!

Martins tough approach has paid off in WA and it is time the Eastern States stewards followed suit. They have been left with egg on their faces and one integrity officer is patently corrupt and a disgrace to his former office.

However, people who wish to ban things, because they do not approve of them, should look at what harm that can do to a situation.  

The US was a prime example of that when Prohibition became the law of the land (1920-33) and that policy has since been deemed by historians as an abject failure. It failed because vast numbers of people did not support government policy on what was seen as draconian social control that had been imposed on them by a highly active ‘wowser’ element.

The lessons of history are clear: not only does it not work, that is, people do not stop imbibing, but more importantly it creates greater evils in society such as the rise of crime and gangsters caused by the demands for an illegal booze industry.

Unfortunately the new, so-called, social media has spawned a veritable wave of characters like Wayne Bidwell Wheeler (1869-1927). His zealotry, in helping to make America ‘dry’ for 13 years,  is matched by those extreme animal rights activists of today that see evil everywhere when it comes to racing animals.

Those who challenge the new purists are deemed to be lacking in compassion and out of touch. If it all sounds familiar the same tactics are used by the homosexual lobby, Islamic fundamentalists, and other strident minorities. These groups use nonsensical words like homophobia, Islamophobia, etc in an attempt to belittle and close down debate and commentary from those who hold alternate, traditional views.

Just like the Prohibition era, if any, or all, racing codes were banned then illegal meetings would be held with no control by stewards or vets and animal exploitation would be far worse.

Emotive words, by various ‘Facebookers and Twitterers,’ that the greyhound industry is ‘unlawful and inhumane,’ are patently absurd and belong in the fantasy world of Scott Ludlum.

 The racing codes are both lawful and conducted ethically to ensure animals are fit to run but reality loses out to the critics ‘feelings.’ These feelings assume primary importance in their manic desire to ban a whole industry and consign people to the unemployment scrapheap.

In contrast to critics cheap talk, the rogue elements, rightly exposed by Four Corners, are in the process of being dealt with, their careers finished and whatever reputation they had in tatters.