Pregnant horse raced to death on Irish road triggers call for ban

Sulky drivers illegally staging horse races on public roads have killed a pregnant mare and her “fully formed” unborn foal. The charity My Lovely Horse Rescue were called to the scene in Ballyfermot in the west of Dublin, where they found an exhausted horse named Anne lying bloodied and abandoned in the middle of the road.

They transported her to University College Dublin (UCD) in the hope of providing specialist treatment. However, vets at UCD determined there was too much internal damage for the horse to recover, and therefore made the decision to euthanise.

My Lovely Horse Rescue received reports of the horse being spotted in the Dollymount area, around 15 km away in the far east of the city. This means the racers subjected the heavily pregnant animal to a gruelling trek across an entire city, with the stress of navigating busy main roads. Up to six horses were involved in the race. Anne was seen falling to the ground an hour prior to her final collapse. The charity say Anne:

…slid for at least 30/40 metres. Her injuries align with this.

Images and videos on their Facebook page show the horse with blood on its legs, unable to stand. They say:

Anne was seen being whipped and kicked to get back up. She didn’t, she couldn’t.

Her abusers fled the scene into the bushes leaving Anne to die!!!

…anyone with pictures, dash cam footage to come forward.

Sulky racing — calls to ban so-called ‘sport’ increase

Sulky racing involves driving horses along a course while they are attached to a two-wheel cart or ‘sulky’. Done on official tracks, it is a legal sport similar to horse racing, albeit with the same risks of injury to animals who are being abused purely for human entertainment. An underground scene exists, however, in which racers drive horses along roads. This violates existing traffic laws.

My Lovely Horse Rescue report being routinely called out to instances of injured or dead horses who have suffered their fate as a result of sulky road races. Media have covered several cases of horses killed by racers in recent years. The latest cruelty has prompted fresh calls for politicians to bring in new laws to specifically ban sulky racing.

Aontú’s Limerick Councillor Sarah Beasley described herself as “horrified” by the death of Anne and her foal. She said of the ‘sport’:

It is endangering animals and human lives, because we know that sulky racing is taking place on busy national roads as well as more rural ones. Can you just imagine the carnage that would be caused if one of these sulkys’ [sic] careered into the path of drivers or pedestrians? The horrors of this are just unimaginable.

Currently the spotlight is on scramblers and their use on public roads which is also illegal, and action is being taken to stamp this out for once and for all, but sulky driving is equally as deadly, both to the unfortunate animals and the public.

She continued:

We need statutory prohibition of sulky racing and training now.

Cruel ‘traditions’ should be discontinued

A petition calling for new legislation has amassed nearly 10,000 signatures. Sinn Féin’s Chris Andrews highlighted Anne’s death in the Senate and called for ministers to deal with “lawlessness” around animal abuse. A previous attempt in 2018 to ban the sport failed. Then Sinn Féin highlighted the lack of clear authority to deal with abuse of horses. Deputy Matt Carthy said:

The problem, however, is that when issues regarding equine welfare are raised with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, they are then pointed in the direction of the local authority, from where they are then pointed in the direction of the Garda and from there they are directed back to the Department.

There is not a clearly defined line of responsibility where people take charge of this issue. In most parts of the country, almost no dedicated staff and resources are allocated to the monitoring of equine welfare issues.

He said a specific bill outlawing the practice would be the:

…ideal opportunity to start dealing with these issues…

Carthy flagged how:

…Ireland is almost unique in having an urban culture in respect of horses.

While he was not using culture as an excuse, others have defended sulky racing via this means. This is much the same approach used by others to justify the continuation of other cruel sports still legal in Ireland, such as hare coursing, greyhound racing and foxhunting.

When these two principles collide – defending an established culture vs ending cruelty to defenceless animals – clearly the latter should prevail. We understand this perfectly well in other cases where toxic practices are condoned with a cultural defence; no reasonable person thinks female genital mutilation should proceed on the basis of ensuring an old tradition continues.

Ireland needs to stop lagging behind in preventing animals being tormented for the sake of so-called ‘sport’. Banning sulky racing would be a good start.

Featured image via Ireland Live