The Durban July

Once they’re outside the tracking system, unwanted thoroughbreds are in the same boat as any other horse. If someone buys a thoroughbred and it turns out it can’t jump as well as they thought or it’s too much horse for their child, they get rid of it with no questions asked of the new owner.

Traditional racing is largely unregulated. At one end are wealthy owners who lavish care and money on their animals and rural people for whom owning and caring for a horse is a status symbol. At the other end is immense cruelty with horses raced, quite literally, to death. There’s also been an expansion from skilled triple racing to full-gallop flat racing, mainly in the Eastern Cape and increasingly with retired thoroughbreds.

More formal events such as the Dundee July, Bray July, Berlin Race, Klimon Cup, Nkandla Cup are fairly well organised, but some are run on tussocky, stony tracks that are treacherous if it rains.

Mahlubi Puzi, a racing administrator in the Eastern Cape, says events take place every Saturday with both thoroughbreds and traditional horses: “They’re part of the fabric, the culture of rural society.”

He denies betting takes place, saying it only happens among individuals.

But Stanley Adam of the Eastern Cape Horse Care Unit doesn’t buy that. “Betting might be informal, but there’s big ticket sales. They must pull in huge amounts, but the race prizes are maybe R300,000 in total.

“So where is the rest of the money going? It doesn’t benefit the horses or disadvantaged communities. I think betting is making millions…

“The big problem is thoroughbreds… This is not the area for them. You can’t put them in a rural area and expect them to blossom.

“I say to these guys, ‘You can’t take your Ferrari and like drive on the gravel road. It doesn’t work like that.’ What’s happening is that formerly pampered horses [among many others] are being hammered.”

In December last year, the National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA) issued a media statement about a race it attended in the Eastern Cape. More than 100 horses were inspected and most were found to be thoroughbreds.

“The use of thoroughbreds in this unregulated event suggests that the horses, once loved by wealthy owners, would have been auctioned off [at a fraction of the price they were initially bought for] when the horse could no longer perform on regulated horse tracks, such as the Durban July, due to injury, disease or age. These poor animals are then thrown into the world of bush racing.”

The race was held during the rainy season and the track was slippery and dangerous for the horses and their riders.

“The lack of compassion displayed by many of the owners for the event was appalling,” the NSPCA statement said. “To attempt to race compromised animals for financial gain, with no regard for the animal’s suffering, is beyond inhumane.”

A report in the South Coast Herald documented an NSPCA visit to a rural race in the area in 2020. Wire was being used in place of bits and bridles, causing mouth sores with horses struggling to eat. Unfitted saddles had caused saddle sores and the owners showed no mercy when a horse was injured. Two of the horses had to be euthanised on the spot because of their injuries.

“One of the horses had a hoof that was badly injured and almost detached from the foreleg. Its front leg was swollen with a massive infection, with pus pouring from it. The animal was unable to walk,” Inspector Werneer Taljaard was quoted as saying.

NSPCA vet Dr Bryce Marock feels that all horse racing is unacceptable and a welfare problem, but is deeply concerned when it’s unregulated. “What we see happening now is not traditional,” says. “It’s a scheme that likes money but not rules. And, unfortunately, the animals are the losers.” According to him, there are serious problems with the informal racing sector. These include: horses are transported across provincial borders without African horse sickness permits, often in cattle trucks and trailers and even in the back of bakkies; tracks are not compressed and often uneven with holes; riders use sjamboks or reverse crops, hitting with the handle end; horses with injuries or not fit to compete are entered; there are normally no doping tests, which encourages riders to use enhancements or painkillers on horses with injuries; proof of vaccine cards are often absent; wire is used in bits; and there are seldom vets present.

Four key changes are urgently needed to ensure protection of horses: the Animal Protection Act must be strengthened; the Animal Welfare Bill now being drafted has to incorporate horse racing of all forms within its protection and scope; the NSPCA needs state funding, to get bigger legal teeth and create a national division focused solely on horse racing; and the NHA should campaign to enforce the microchipping of any horse that’s raced anywhere in SA.

At root, South Africa should not permit cruelty to these magnificent animals that have served humanity for so long. “Horses love people,” stable owner Peta Hunter told me, “but we don’t deserve it.”

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