Racehorse Protection

Philip Davies Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I was not planning to speak in this debate, because I had tabled some amendments to the Offensive Weapons Bill, but the party Whips decided against holding that debate, presumably so that I might speak in this one. I therefore thought it would be rude not to take up the opportunity.

I do not want to speak for long, but I want to support my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), who set out clearly the case not only for horse-racing but for how well the BHA regulates horse-racing and in particular horse welfare. Like him, I have had my disagreements with the BHA, so I am not someone who automatically and naturally jumps to support it.

I should make it clear, as my hon. Friend did, that people ought to refer to my entry in the register of Members’ interests because, on a number of occasions, I too have received hospitality at the races, including at York racecourse, where I was on Saturday—as was the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). I should add that I do not own any racehorses at the moment, although I have done so in the past. I would say that I was a modest owner of racehorses and an owner of very modest horses at that. The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill), who led the debate, talked about the great riches in racing, but I assure everyone that I was not participating at that kind of level. My horses participated at the standard not of the Ebor meeting at York, but more of a Saturday evening at Wolverhampton. I should make that clear.

I will add to some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury and respond to a few of the other points made so far. I shall do the latter first, if I may. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who unfortunately is no longer in his place, has Cartmel racecourse in his constituency—I might be wrong about that, but I do not think so—and I hope that he is a supporter of it, but he said something quite extraordinary. He said that it was incompatible for a regulator to promote a sport and to be responsible for animal welfare, but I think that the two go essentially hand in hand. How on earth can a body promote a sport such as horse-racing without a clear commitment to animal welfare? For the life of me, I could not understand his argument. For me, the two are perfectly compatible and must go hand in hand.

We also heard earlier, I think from the hon. Member for Hartlepool, that horses have no choice, unlike jockeys and so on. I have to say, that that is not entirely true, for two reasons. For example, a few years ago there was a terrible tragedy when the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Synchronised, favourite for the Grand National that very same year, died. Synchronised ran in the Grand National and fell, but it did not die when it fell with the jockey on board; it died afterwards, after it fell for a second time, running loose and jumping the fences with the rest of the field. That horse did have a choice. It was loose—it had no jockey on its back. It carried on because horses love jumping. They love running, they love racing and they love jumping. There was a terrible outcome in that case—it is in the figures the hon. Member for Hartlepool referred to—but that horse did have a choice. It wanted to carry on with the rest of the field, because horses love running, racing and jumping.

[Mr Robertson]

I was at Aintree when that sad incident took place. Has my hon. Friend ever sat on a horse? If he has, he will know that it is simply not possible to get a horse to do anything it does not want to do.

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[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That was going to be my very next point. A horse weighs approximately half a tonne. A flat jockey at York on Saturday would have weighed roughly 8 or 8½ stone. I assure Members that there is no way on God’s earth that an 8½-stone jockey will force half a tonne of horse to do something it really does not want to do. If it digs its heels in and decides it will not go into the starting stalls, it will not go into the starting stalls, and there is nothing an 8-stone jockey can do to force it to. If a horse does not want to set off at the start of a steeplechase, no jockey will be able to force it to.

That happens from time to time. Horses are wilful and intelligent creatures. They are not stupid. When they get to the racecourse, they know they are at the racecourse and they are there to race. Believe me, when horses decide to set off, they do so of their own volition. Many racehorses decline to race—they do not come out of the stalls and do not set off. That happens from time to time—regrettably, usually when I have backed one.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a thorough speech, but he fails to point out that horses are trained to jump and race—those things do not exactly come to a horse naturally. Horses that are not trained, such as those we see in fields as we drive by on the motorway or a country road, do not jump fences automatically just because they naturally love to jump.

[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.

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[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I represent Derby North, where we do not currently have a racecourse, although we do have a park called Racecourse park because we used to have one. I, no doubt like other hon. Members, have been lobbied by many constituents. I have had lots of letters from constituents who are concerned about horse welfare, use of the whip, and the number of horses that have died in horse-racing. They are keen for the House to press the Government to introduce an independent regulatory body.

I joined the League Against Cruel Sports back in 1976, so I have paid some attention to cruel sports, and some elements of horse-racing are undoubtedly incredibly cruel. I have paid much attention to the Grand National. The League Against Cruel Sports, along with a number of other organisations, has made representations about the cruelty associated with that event for many years. The course has been modified somewhat, but it is incredibly gruelling nevertheless. Other hon. Members have made glowing references to the British Horseracing Authority, but in my opinion it has proved itself to be singularly useless on animal welfare since it was founded in 2007. Why do I say that? Since that time 2,000 horses have died in horse-racing. On the barbaric use of the whip, in the order of 500 abuses are recorded every year, and there is no sign of a reduction in that number.

The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) suggested rather absurdly that the whip does not hurt. He said, “Get a whip and hit yourself with it—it won’t hurt.” Let me put a challenge to him: give me the whip, go stand somewhere and let me hit you with it and see if I can hurt you. He will probably find that I could hurt him.

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Gentleman has a reputation for spouting off without having the first idea what he is talking about, and he has demonstrated that again. He has clearly never come across the new design of the whip in horse-racing—the whip is cushioned. I appreciate that he never feels the need to know anything about a subject before telling us all about it, but I advise him to try to find something out. He should visit racing stables and see for himself the new design of the whip, because it is cushioned and it does not hurt. Old whips may well have had problems, but the new, latest whip does not. He should know that.

[Chris Williamson]

Many people would beg to differ. The challenge still stands to see whether I could hurt the hon. Gentleman. Perhaps we can get some witnesses together and see whether that is possible—but perhaps he is tougher than me.

The hon. Gentleman also asserted that he is an animal lover. That is an interesting observation from someone whom I understand is in favour of repealing the Hunting Act 2004. Someone in favour of ripping wild animals to pieces claims to be an animal lover—that brings his assertion into question.

[Philip Davies]

To emphasise the point that the hon. Gentleman comes here without knowing anything of what he is talking about, I have made it abundantly clear that I do not support changing the law on hunting at all. The law should stay in place. Again, he makes the case for me that he comes here spouting off about things of which he knows nothing.

[Chris Williamson]

I am delighted to hear that, because organisations have sought to find out how Members of Parliament would vote on a repeal of the Hunting Act and the hon. Gentleman was down as being in favour. However, we digress, because we are not here to talk about blood sports.

A self-governing body in any area leaves a lot to be desired. We see it in a host of things, from financial regulation to the governing of the horse-racing industry. The British Horseracing Authority has a range of different responsibilities, including race planning; disciplinary procedures; protecting the integrity of the sport; licensing and registering racing participants; setting and enforcing standards of medical care for jockeys and other participants; setting and enforcing common standards for British racecourses; research and improvements in equine science and welfare; regulating point-to-point racing in the UK; the compilation of the fixture list; and setting and enforcing the rules and orders of racing. There is only one reference to welfare, and that is in the context of research and improvements in equine science and welfare.

To be frank, I do not understand why any hon. Member would have a difficulty with an independent body having oversight of welfare in the industry. If a body is dedicated exclusively at looking at the welfare of horses, surely that would make it more accountable and better at the job. The BHA’s responsibilities include a host of things, which I have just listed, and welfare receives just a minor reference. Having an organisation dedicated to enforcing and improving welfare standards would improve the welfare of horses.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) tried to widen the debate and question the motives of the organisation behind the petition. He suggested that it wanted to abolish horse-racing, but that is not what we are debating today. All we are debating is whether an independent body should oversee the welfare of horses that participate in horse-racing. Why would anybody have a problem with that?

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[Philip Davies]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Chris Williamson]

I have only a few more words to say, but go on.

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Gentleman has been very generous in giving way, but he seems to dodge the issue by saying that we are not talking today about a ban. Does he want to ban horse-racing? Does he want to ban national hunt racing in this country? Would that be the end product if he were running the show?

[Chris Williamson]

No, I am not calling for that at all. What I want to see is welfare standards upheld in the industry. I would hope that all of us wish to see that. There is a difference of opinion: some seem to think that the BHA is capable of doing that, but it has proven itself incapable of doing so, because if it were, we would not have seen so many horses being killed and we would not see the grotesque use of the whip. In a sense, however, that is irrelevant, irrespective of my views. That is not what we are debating today and I am not calling for it.

I am a vegan and, indeed, the vegans will inherit the earth—there is no doubt about that. We have to reduce the amount of meat we are eating because we are killing the planet, but we are not getting into that now. We are not having a wide debate about the rights, wrongs and wherefores of various different topics. The hon. Gentleman and others have sought to muddy the waters by questioning the motives of the people behind the petition.