New Jersey to Ban Riding Crop Use Except for Safety

[moses]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

Would anyone disagree that at least 95% of using the crop is to make the horse run faster? Is it really that hard to tell in a stretch drive when a horse is being hit to straighten out and when the horse is already running straight and being whipped to run faster?

As longtime fans and bettors, we forget that to a casual observer, our "sport" looks like a bunch of guys beating the crap out of horses to make them run faster. Maybe, with education, we can convince newbies that the whipping doesn't hurt that much. Okay, then our sport will look like a bunch of guys scaring the crap out of horses to make them run faster.

Meanwhile, we're telling people that these horses naturally love to run. Apparently they don't love to run fast enough.

The bottom line is that whipping horses to make them run faster looks cruel. It's always going to be hard to increase interest in a sport that has something that looks like animal cruelty. If you took away the whipping, you'd still have a level playing field.

To the casual observer, golf looks like people hitting a ball and then walking after it and football looks like men running really fast into each other and giving themselves brain injuries and “ultimate fighting” can look barbaric.

Now, not all of those are the same and there are changes being made to some sports but I don’t believe any of those sports are changing to appease the casual observer. I know they aren’t perfect comparisons but there is always a balance between trying to draw in new fans while trying to keep existing fans happy.