Sign the Petition
Target: Lisa Lazarus, CEO of Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority
Goal: Consider full ban on horse whipping during competitive events.
The jockey who rode racehorse Sovereignty to victory in the Kentucky Derby has been fined and suspended following an excessive whipping violation. Junior Alvarado struck his horse with a crop eight times during the race, above the six-strike threshold. It was Alvarado’s second violation in a short period of time and ninth violation overall.
The stricter rules regarding whipping were put in place following a series of racehorse deaths at a California track. Late in 2024, an Olympian from the United Kingdom was also handed down a lofty one-year suspension after video emerged of her whipping her horse excessively during training sessions. Whipping can have a demonstrated negative effect on the welfare of horses, given horse skin is as sensitive as human skin.
Sign the petition below to demand racing officials take the next logical step by enacting an outright ban on whipping in horseracing.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Ms. Lazarus,
The industry’s new whipping rules are not working. The winner of the Kentucky Derby was recently fined and suspended for a ninth time for excessive whipping. The lesson was clearly not learned the first eight times.
Despite claims that whipping makes racing safer, more efficient, and fairer, the research backs up none of these assertions. This practice is the equivalent of whipping runners to provoke them to go faster. Horse skin is no tougher or more pain-resistant than human skin. World Horse Welfare sums it best: “Respect for the horse must be at the heart of every equestrian, and every equestrian sport, and their actions must demonstrate that respect all of the time.”
Show this respect in action. Join Norway and other regions around the world who have embraced whip-free racing as a humane path forward that still enables competition without needless pain and harm.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Absolute Charm
Whip the jockeys the same amount after the race.
These little pieces of shit tiny so called men… NOT..
NO such thing as a well deserved retirement. Instead these poor horses are off to the knackery or loaded onto export ships & sent to asia for a horrendously cruel slaughter for leather car interior or whatever,, many horses are simply left to starve to death on properties out of sight & out of mind. A very low number of horses are treated humanely once they’re used up & no longer viable.
They are $sadists$, like all in the horseracing industry & deserve to be forced to run for their lives & whipped to death. This is how it is for race horses.. no hope for the losing, injured horses.
They are horses, not objects, and should not be subjected to abuse so jockeys and owners can feel glory and their egos boosted.
Just ban horse racing all together!! It’s a cruel sport.
Whip these jockeys and see how they like it I say..definitely NOT acceptable.
Horses are beautiful sentient beings not stuffed pillows or flogging boards
Not on!!!
Jockeys etc should actually spend jail time for using it.
6 whippings are allowed?? No whippings should be acceptable. 1 is as painful as 6 and not humane. I thought we had banned it a long time ago. Ban it now! Horrible!!!