Beware the RSPCA’s mischief making

You might have heard a whisper or two earlier in the week about a race at Royal Randwick tomorrow, a weight-for-age event, featuring a host of Australia’s best sprinters (with one from the US and another from Japan) battling it out over six furlongs.

The Everest is Australia’s richest racing event with combined prizemoney of $13 million. A gigantic presentation cheque will be handed to the connections of the winner featuring a six followed by six zeros with a couple of commas in the right places.

Of course, we all know this because of the brouhaha over a brief display of the barrier draw projected onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House. A thousand or so angry folk assembled on the forecourt on Tuesday night, desperately attempting to outshine the projected images.

As I quipped on Twitter, this all took place while yesterday’s eight-race card at Wyong went tragically unpromoted.

It is probably true that the melee would not have had quite the impetus without Alan Jones’ intervention last week and his crude interview with the Opera House’s CEO, Louise Herron. Jones subsequently apologised.

It is also true that a good number of the protesters assembled to demonstrate what they felt was a loss of public space or at least what they perceived to be a corruption of it.

I understand the argument and have some sympathy for it but there is something darker at work.

I watched the protest at close quarters and followed reactions on social media. I saw one tweet from a protestor in attendance declaring the throng had stuck it up Racing NSW (I am paraphrasing to avoid offending readers’ gentle sensibilities). Upon examination of his profile, I was unsurprised to find he appeared to be a hippy, a professional protestor, in need of a good scrub down with a big soapy brush.

He was in fact part of a group at that protest who exploited public anger to further the call for a ban on thoroughbred racing.

Back in August I wrote an article along these lines, attempting to identify the areas where the racing industry was losing the argument to animal rights’ groups. I used a figure, cited by the RSPCA, of 8500 horses going missing in any given year in recent times.

After the article was published I received a number of calls from people within the industry, some angry, others calm and thoughtful. I took the time to examine the issue further and I have since learned it is nowhere near the figure cited by the RSCPA and studies undertaken by academics both within and outside the racing industry prove it.

The wastage issue, while serious, is heavily overplayed by the RSPCA. The 8500-horse figure is utterly inaccurate and a piece of mischief. Industry studies examining foaling and horses that leave racing for one reason or another reveals a much lower figure. In reality, no more than a few hundred horses are found not to be rehomed.

Regrettably, the RSPCA simply can’t be trusted on this issue or indeed in almost any statement it makes on the welfare of thoroughbred horses. It has become an advocate for the banning of the sport and even when it undertakes studies it cannot be relied upon to report on them rationally and fairly.

My real failing in that article was to ignore my own experience over the shrieking of so-called experts.

Racing is a part of my family’s history and folklore. I could tell many stories but one of my favourites relates to arguably one of the greatest stayers ever to run in this country, Rising Fast. In 1954, the New Zealand gelding won Australia’s Triple Crown — the Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup, a feat never achieved before or since.

As a six-year-old, Rising Fast was handed to ‘Father’ Fred Hoysted for training. Fred was in his dotage at this stage, his sight failing. Rising Fast was tended to for the most part by his son, Bob.

Years later Bob recalled that Rising Fast did not like being enclosed in the stables, preferring to gently graze in a paddock next door. This was all perfectly acceptable until Rising Fast decided to jump the fence and partake in a spot of tourism of the local area.

I can only imagine the shock that that must have hit Bob when he discovered Rising Fast was missing. The story of Bob running down the back streets of Mentone in Melbourne’s south east, in a breathless but ultimately successful search for a horse that would in today’s money be worth at least $20 million, amuses me possibly more than it should.

Rising Fast returned to the paddock because that is what it wanted but Bob knew to keep a constant eye on it.

I visited those same stables many years later and found it to be a menagerie of ducks, chickens, cats and dogs. Peering into the stables I was taken aback at the sight of an elderly pony, possibly in its thirties with teeth like a piano keyboard rendered by Salvador Dali. It was no Melbourne Cup fancy, put it that way.

But there, just behind the pony, was Manikato, at that time the greatest sprinter in Australia and only the second horse after the sublime Kingston Town to win a million dollars in prizemoney.

In that admirable way of animals, the pony was revered by all furred or feathered and especially by Manikato. The champion sprinter would fret in its absence, so much so that wherever Manikato went, Bob would bring the pony along for the ride. The pony became Manikato’s constant companion, the oddest of equine couples bouncing along in the float together.

Fred, Bob and Bob’s brother Bon, who had been Manikato’s trainer until his premature death, were horse whisperers who trained their charges to the second. They understood horses and cared for them better than any jumped up official from the RSPCA could or does.

The notion that industry people — owners, trainers, strappers, track riders and jockeys — could have their livelihoods roughly taken away at some point in future is real. As with the failed attempt to ban greyhound racing in NSW, it needs to be understood that a banning of horse racing would necessarily lead to the mass slaughter of animals.

I am continually astonished to see people who I regard as otherwise rational and thoughtful espousing the line that horse racing should either be banned or regulated to within an inch of its life.

But that is what the RSPCA wants and in its public mischief-making legitimises the ugly foot stompers who reside at the outer edges of animal rights activism. I worry that these people are slowly but surely winning the public over.

The industry has changed since Rising Fast galloped around the streets of Mentone but what drove it then is the same force that drives it today. With almost all people in the industry that force is not just a proper regard for equine welfare but a love of horses.

But don’t just take my word for it. Go to the races tomorrow and see for yourself. And have a little fun while you still can.

This article was published in The Australian 12 October 2018.