The science is in: whips hurt horses.

The use of whips in Australian horse racing has been proven by scientists to be not only ineffectual — but cruel.

For centuries, racehorses have been whipped by jockeys in the belief that horses need ‘encouragement’ to run faster, and ultimately to win races for their human owners. In more recent years, the outdated and cruel practice of beating exhausted horses across the finish line has angered many Australians.

After the cruelty of whips was exposed on ABC’s Catalyst, Racing Australia’s former chief executive, Peter McGauran, conceded that if there was evidence that horses were hurt by whips, then “of course, we would do away with the whip."

But when confronted with said evidence … he refused to ban the whip, claiming it would be “going too far" and wouldn’t be in the “interest of racing."

That’s right … not in the interest of racing.

Instead, Racing Australia updated its rules that limited the number of times a horse can be hit during a race from 10 to 5, but allowed horses to be flogged repeatedly in the last 100 metres of a race – when the horse is most tired – in a brutal effort to push the exhausted animal ‘over the line’.

Such a blatant disregard for suffering is not surprising from an industry that ignores the fact that at least one horse dies every 2 days on Australian racetracks – and that seven horses have died in the last eight Melbourne Cup races alone.

The outcome of recent studies on whipping

Covered on ABC’s Catalyst, experts have called into question the use of whips in horse racing after studies have shown:

• Horses’ skin is not only thinner than that of a human, but may be more sensitive to pain
• Whipping horses is “likely to be painful"
• Despite the introduction of a modified padded whip in 2009, horses are still being struck in sensitive areas with the non-padded knot of the whip
• Even when the padded whip is being used according to new guidelines, it is still likely to cause the horse pain.