Harness Racing Australia has announced it will ban the use of the whip. The decision is a world first for any horse sporting body, so what about the rest of the horse racing industry?
How dangerous really is horse riding and sports like eventing? While there are risks, they can be managed, especially if we learn to understand horses better.
Two motifs predominate in racing fashion: the horseshoe and the horse bit. But what does it mean when “fillies on the field” dress in clothes adorned with stirrups, bits and other equine symbols?
The Horse, currently on display at the National Gallery of Victoria, celebrates the pivotal role the horse has played in the evolution of civilisation.
The tragic deaths of the favourite Admire Rakti and seventh placegetter Araldo soon after the Melbourne Cup has focused attention on some of the risks involved in racing horses. The Japanese horse Admire…
This is not an article about unicorns or virgins, but about the power of imagination, both wonderful and terrible. As an academic and equine artist I work between creative imagination and scientific epistemology…
If you’re looking for a definitive answer on who will win the Melbourne Cup – the world’s most prestigious two-mile handicap – I’m afraid I’m going to leave you sorely disappointed. What I can offer is…
It’s the race that stops a nation … and is worth a cool A$6.2 million. So what goes into the raceday preparation for the equine stars of the show? Thoroughbred racehorses have unique anatomy and physiology…
In elite racehorses, biology is pushed to the limit – about four tonnes is placed on the joint surfaces in a galloping horse’s lower limb with every stride, and these repeated loads have the potential…
The win of Japanese stayer Admire Rakti in the Caulfield Cup, followed by Irish bred colt Adelaide’s win in the Cox Plate last Saturday, has brought into question the stamina (staying) credentials of Australian…
It’s not just the horses that wear blinkers during the Melbourne Cup, the so-called “race that stops a nation”, which takes place next Tuesday. Perhaps it’s the excitement, the champagne or the extraordinary…
Don Driscoll, Australian National University and Sam Banks, Australian National University
When you think of horses in the Australia high country, you might imagine noble brumbies galloping out from snowgums across grassy peaks, tails and manes trailing like streamers. But on a recent trip to…
We had driven the land cruiser for half a day across the seemingly endless reaches of the Great Basin, the vast, near-waterless region of valleys and plains that stretches out from Nevada in the western…