A horse race is a contest of speed between horses that either pull sulkies and their drivers or are ridden by jockeys. A race can take place on any type of flat racing surface, from a dirt track to a grass course. The races are usually timed over distances of four to six miles (6-8 km). A fast and precise turn of foot is required for victory, especially in sprint races. In long-distance races, endurance is more important. A race may be a handicap, in which the jockeys are assigned weights that are designed to equalize the chances of winning for all the entrants, or a condition race where allowances are given to young and female horses racing against males.
This election season is one that seems to be shaping up as a horse race, with pundits and journalists using the term in an attempt to add a bit of suspense to an already tense political climate. The phrase has become so common that even academic scholars are noticing the language slipping into our political vocabulary and discussing whether it is a useful tool for media coverage of an important national event.
Some critics argue that news outlets need to stop using the term horse race to describe a political contest, especially in early pre-election polling. They believe that the phrase reduces the importance of actual policy discussion and trivializes the potential impact of a candidate’s victory or defeat. In addition, the use of the term smacks of a superficial approach to journalism and is not in keeping with the principles of professional journalism.
The purpose of this study is to investigate how key industry and animal advocacy informants conceptualise naturalness within the context of some common racing practices that could potentially impact on a horse’s welfare. Using semi-structured interviewing and photo-elicitation, the participants were shown four common images of thoroughbreds on race day and asked how they would describe them in terms of naturalness.
The findings reveal that, in general, the industry informants were inclined to naturalise and normalise the horses’ behaviour and did not see the need to consider the broader impacts of these racing practices. This was particularly evident in the case of one industry informant, TBI-1, who tended to ignore any features in an image that might indicate the presence of tack and did not describe the horses’ mental or behavioural expressions. In contrast, the animal advocacy informants were more critical and used hermeneutic research approaches to deepen their analysis of the issues that they identified.