Few causes can unite the student body as effectively as our age old rivalry with the other place. Each year sporting events such as the boat race draw thousands of spectators, from within the universities and outside. Most of us (Trenton Oldfield excepted) consider these annual spectacles to be harmless fun, but before enthusiastically embracing the latest addition to this list, a horse race, there are a few issues that need careful consideration.

Every year in the UK, around 200 horses are raced to death, and this figure does not include horses who are injured and 'destroyed' at a later date or who die during training. Typically they are killed after suffering catastrophic injuries such as a broken neck or leg. In almost any other context, the public would be overwhelmingly against inflicting suffering on animals for the sole purpose of 'sport'. Why should horse racing be different?

Some people will try to argue that the horses enjoy racing, to the point where taking part is worth the risk to them. The argument goes that if horses were capable of understanding the risks involved then they, like the human jockeys who are also in danger, would freely give their consent (though it is worth noting that the risk for jockeys is far lower than it is for horses). In other words, participating in racing is supposedly in the best interests of the horses.

A first objection to this argument is that horses are not capable of making this judgement. If we were using humans in an activity which carried a similar risk of terrible suffering and for whatever reason those humans did not have the ability to give informed consent, there is no way the activity would be allowed to go ahead. If we accept that horses, like humans, are capable of experiencing terrible suffering, then why should we act differently with regards to them?

Secondly, it is hard to accept that defenders of horse racing really do carefully consider the interests of horses with the care suggested by this argument. Take the use of fences and ditches as obstacles. Although these are not involved in the varsity race, they are a regular feature of horse racing in the UK. Some of the most notorious obstacles are those on the Grand National course, an exceptionally dangerous race with 40 horses killed over the 3-day meet since 2000. The risk of death is six times greater than for a flat race. Such an event might make things more exciting for spectators but it is presumably not much more enjoyable for the horses. If their interests were considered appropriately then would such an event really be allowed to go ahead?

Even if you still believe that horses benefit from their participation in races, there is a more serious concern (in terms of the number of individuals involved) and that is what happens to the horses who do not race. Approximately 12,000 foals are born into the British and Irish racing industries each year, yet around half will not go on to become racers. Even those who do will not stay fit enough to race forever. This results in thousands of horses worth of unwanted by-product each year from an industry ultimately not concerned with the welfare of horses, but with profit making from spectators and gamblers. Put another way, this is thousands of individuals with a capacity to experience pain and pleasure and with complex physical and social needs who have no one wanting to care for them and no where to go. Such horses may be slaughtered for meat or repeatedly change hands in a downward spiral of neglect. When the recession hit Ireland and demand for racehorses collapsed, 4,618 thoroughbred horses were killed in slaughterhouses in a single year, and this figure does not include those killed in “knacker's yards”. The effect of this breeding program on the breeding mares and stallions should also be considered. Mares endure a lifetime of near constant pregnancy while successful stallions lead isolated lives away from contact with other horses except for mating.

A final response that may be made in defence of horse racing, and is often made about other animal rights campaigns, is the following. Despite everything said so far, it still might be argued that race horses have far happier lives than the billions of pigs, cows, and chickens raised each year on our factory farms, which most of us are happy to eat. Does this too not result in animal suffering for no greater reason than human enjoyment? This is an important point, but it is clearly not a defence of horse racing. Rather, it is a sign that we should be examining these other issues as well. Compared to factory farming, horse racing may seem like a drop in the ocean, but it is symptomatic of an attitude towards non-human animals which discounts their interests simply because they belong to a different species. They are valued only so far as they contribute to human enjoyment. It should not be controversial to say that species membership alone is not a morally relevant characteristic, yet most people will instinctively place a sacred value on the life of a human infant that they would never place on an adult chimpanzee, despite the chimpanzee showing significantly more evidence of intelligence and self-awareness. Most of us are speciesists.

So the next time you watch a horse race, spare a thought for the individual beneath the jockey, and how much we should consider the interests of the non-human animals we share this Earth with, billions of whom were brought into the world by us to live short miserable lives, purely for our own enjoyment.