The distribution of whipping of Australian Thoroughbred racehorses in the penultimate 200 m of races is influenced by jockeys’ experience

Animal welfare issues associated with whip use during Thoroughbred races in Australia are of increasing importance as the racing industry seeks to promote the well-being of its equine athletes. Recent data have questioned the justification of whip use as either an accelerator or for steering. The aim of this study was to investigate associations between whip use and prerace variables, including jockey experience, starting price, weight carried, and barrier drawn. If the whip is genuinely used in response to a given horse’s performance, there should be no consistent predictors of whip use. We explored the influence of these variables on official whip counts for the race section 400-200 m from the finish (S2), and the section 200 m to the finish (S1), and found that, for S1 alone and when whip use in S1 and S2 was summed (i.e., to summarize the final 400 m of a race), there were no significant predictors on whipping. However, in S2, apprentice jockeys whipped horses on average >3 times as compared with the non-apprentice jockeys (1.48 vs. 0.45; P = 0.022). These findings suggest that rider inexperience in Thoroughbred racing influences the distribution of whippings imposed on horses as they tire in the penultimate 200 m section and may contribute to the growing debate surrounding whip use in the sport of horse racing. This preliminary report involved only small numbers of horses and jockeys and thus should be viewed as a trigger for larger scale investigation of the prerace predictors of whip use in Thoroughbred racing.