Horse Racing and Animal Welfare: Horse deaths over jumps

Pod Academy

New Zealand is an important place for thoroughbred breeding and racing. Most races are on the flat, but jumps racing is conducted in the cooler months. At the 2013 National Jumps Day at Te Rapa, Hamilton, two horses were put down after bad falls over the jumps. In this conversation Dr Siobhan O’Sullivan of the podcast show, Knowing Animals talks to Professor Phil McManus of Sydney University about what happened that day and how these horse deaths were then represented on social media.

The discussion revolves around Prof McManus’s recent paper, The construction of human–animal relations: National Jumps Day 2013 at Te Rapa, Hamilton, New Zealand (Phil McManus, Raewyn Graham and Karen Ruse, New Zealand Geographer Journal) which explores competing narratives of the horses’ deaths that day at Te Rapa and demonstrates how animals, people, activities and places are constructed, including making animal deaths unrecognisable to perpetuate activities that are questioned by contemporary animal geographies

This podcast was first aired on Knowing Animals, a great podcast show which features conversations with animal studies scholars about animal welfare and animal rights, and in particular the construction of human–animal relations.

We will also be featuring a second podcast from Knowing Animals on the use of the whip in horse racing.

Picture by Paul

You may also be interested in our other podcast on animal welfare in horse racing – the use of the whip in horse racing – another collaboration with Knowing Animals.