welfare evidence library • question
Do we need the whip in racing?
A four minute read - Asked by someone in Irish racing • Published July 2026
The short answer
The short answer is no - racing does not need the whip.
Norway banned the whip in horse racing in 2009.
There is no evidence that whips improve finishing times, safety, steering, or interference (Thompson et al, 2020, World Horse Welfare).
The strongest findings show the whip reduces horse welfare (Uldahl & Mellor, 2025) and costs racing — most members of the public do not support whipping horses (World Horse Welfare, 2024, Wilson et al, 2021).
The real question isn’t do we need it, but why do we still use it?
PHYSICAL EVIDENCE - what the practice does to the body
Does it work - and does it hurt?
Whip rules are inconsistent across jurisdictions - places like Norway ban whips for all horses older than two, other places like Japan allow unlimited use of the whip, other places like Ireland and the UK fall somewhere in the middle.
If the whip was truly effective and critical to successful racing, you would expect greater consistency across racing jurisdictions (see Table 1 and Table 2 for details).
Table 1
Table 2
No evidence to show whips in racing improve:
finishing times
safety
steering
interference (Thompson et al, 2020, World Horse Welfare)
Evidence shows:
Whip use is linked to horse falls in jumps racing (Pinchbeck et al, 2004)
Whip use is linked to fatal leg fracture (Parkin et al, 2006)
Horses ran fastest when whip not used (Evans & McGreevy, 2011)
60% of whip strikes result in a physical indent in the horse's body (Author name, Year)
Jockeys whip horses when they are tired, in the closing sections of the race (Evans & McGreevy, 2011)
Apprentice jockeys whip horses more at different race stages (McGreevy & Ralston, 2012)
MENTAL-STATE EVIDENCE - what the horse experiences
What does the horse feel?
There is no doubt that horses can and do feel pain when whipped (Uldahl & Mellor, 2025)
Many people question, can horses feel pain?
Scientific consensus is that horses are sentient and can feel pain - that means they are aware of positive and negative sensations and feelings, including feeling pain (Cambridge Declaration, 2012 , NY Declaration on Animal Consciousness, 2024)
Pain assessment in animals has been part of science for over 80 years (Broom, 2001)
Silence does not indicate an animal doesn't feel pain (Shutt, 1987, Broom, 2001)
Equine pain face - a validated tool for assessing pain in horses (Gleerup, 2015)
SOCIAL EVIDENCE - what a practice means
What does the public see?
Whipping has historically been used in slavery to incentivise and punish, and with animals as a tool of domestication and control (Wadiwel, 2013).
Whipping horses indicates to the public the industry views horses athletic equipment (Luke et al, 2026)
Many, and in some cases, most members of the public do not support whipping horses (World Horse Welfare, 2024, Wilson et al, 2021)
Few racing enthusiasts said they would stop betting if the whip was banned (Wilson et al, 2021)
"Does it (the whip) look good? Definitely not."
So why do we still whip horses?
If the case is this weak, why hasn’t the whip gone? Not because trainers don’t care about horses — most got into racing because they do. It persists because the structure around them rewards keeping it. The rules still permit it, so no one is forced to stop. A trainer who put the whip down first would feel they’d handed rivals an edge. It’s carried in a jockey’s hand from their first ride, so it feels like part of riding rather than a choice. And no one has been handed a clear, backed alternative and told: do it this way instead.
None of that is a person failing. It’s a system doing what it’s built to do. Which is the good news, in a way — change the structure and you don’t need to change anyone’s heart first.