Sir,

Listening to the Nick Luck Daily Podcast on Wednesday, November 23rd, regarding the new whip rules in Britain, I was taken by Nick’s interview with Ruby Walsh, during which Ruby stated that the use of the whip toward the end of a race was to “ignite the flight reaction” in the horse, in order to draw out its best possible performance.

He went on to compare this reaction to a personal trainer looking over your shoulder in the gym, and the grit and determination shown by human athletes in the final 200 metres of an 800-metre race.

I had never heard this explanation for the use of the whip before, so decided to investigate.

According to Wikipedia, the flight response (reaction) in the horse (it is present in all mammals but particularly acute in natural prey animals) is part of a fear response which is elicited when the horse senses a real or apparent threat to its survival.

It entails the release of various hormones in the body that rapidly equip the horse to instinctively flee from the threat. The same response can also cause a horse to fight or freeze, depending on the circumstances and the individual.

The process is generally referred to as the fight, flight or freeze response (I will refer to it as the 3F response hereafter).

Chased by tigers

In the case of the horse it is an intense response, which traces back to a time when horses were prey animals on the Steppe plains of central Asia.

Let us imagine a horse being pursued by a tiger across the plains of present-day Mongolia. When the tiger gets close enough to its prey, it will leap into the air to land and sink its claws into the horse’s rump. If the manoeuvre is successful it will take the horse down. If not, the chase will continue.

Compare this scenario to the jockey’s whip impacting the horse’s rump (a blind spot for horses) and you can see how Ruby’s assertion, that the whip ignites the flight reaction, makes sense.

However, (as explained above) not all horses should exhibit the flight response alone when struck with the whip. Some should exhibit a fight response and some a freeze response, or some a combination of the three.

Having been a keen racegoer for nearly 50 years, I wondered had I seen the fight or freeze response to the whip on the racecourse? I believe that I have; on many occasions.

The horse who flashes his tail and actually slows down when struck by the whip is surely displaying more of a fight than a flight response. Such horses are often berated by punters and racing correspondents alike for their non-compliance. However, I would suggest that they deserve some degree of admiration for displaying a fighting spirit, in the face of fear.

Lying motionless

I then considered the freeze response. I had often wondered at the horse who falls at the last or second last obstacle and lies prone on the ground for a number of minutes; before suddenly rising, shaking himself and walking off as if nothing had happened.

Perceived wisdom had told me that this was a winded horse, but I now wonder could at least some of these cases be put down to the freeze response, late in the race, when the whips are out?

Back on the Steppes, when the horse is eventually taken down, they usually displayed the freeze response to make the kill easier on themselves. On the rare occasion that the tiger decided he wasn’t that hungry and didn’t proceed with the kill, the horse would take a number of minutes to recover from the freeze response before rising again and going about his business, in a similar way, I would suggest, to some last-fence fallers of today.

We humans also possess a well developed 3F response (no doubt from the time we were prey of sabre tooth tigers!).

So, as Ruby suggests, is the flight response ignited in humans at the end of an athletics race? I have my doubts. It is possible that the overriding emotion in an athlete at this time could be fear ( e.g. If he/she is representing a country whose secret police like to greet losers off the plane!).

However, I would suggest that the overriding emotion at play in this scenario is one of pride (remember the famous call of 1985 (“Where’s your pride!”). Pride drives the competitive spirit and pushes an athlete through the pain barrier, especially when there is the prospect of great reward and adulation in the aftermath (pride might also account for you doing all the reps when your personal trainer is looking over your shoulder!).

Traumatised

The 3F response usually subsides as the threat is no longer being felt, with hormones returning to normal levels 20 to 60 minutes later. But we know from humans that, in some cases, the 3F response does not shut down completely/properly (usually when the intensity of the threat has been overwhelming or the threat is being repeated on too regular a basis) and in such cases, it is said that the person has been traumatised.

I have no doubt (as we share the same mammalian brain) that horses can become traumatised, under similar conditions to humans. With this in mind, I will hypothesise, if I may, in relation to the two widest margin winners at this year’s Cheltenham Festival, with regard to the whip and the 3F response.

Constitution Hill won the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle by 22 lengths. As far as I can see he was not touched by the whip throughout the race.

A Plus Tard won the Gold Cup by 15 lengths. To my eye, he was struck with the whip five times behind the saddle between the final fence and the finishing line.

Fast forward to both horses’ next outing this autumn. Constitution Hill won the Fighting Fifth hurdle by 12 lengths, again, untouched by the whip.

A Plus Tard however, looked on edge before the Betfair Chase, had to be led from the paddock and put in a very lacklustre performance, before being pulled up after the fourth last fence.

Subsequently, his connections reported that he had been in great form at home in the lead up to the race and that nothing had shown up in post-race examinations or tests that would account for the poor performance.

Is it possible that A Plus Tard is a traumatised Gold Cup winner? Did his return to the racecourse trigger his, now compromised, 3F response? At Haydock, rather than displaying the flight response (as he had done at Cheltenham), did he display a mixture of fight and freeze responses? I think it’s at least a plausible explanation.

Months earlier in March, did Constitution Hill walk proudly into the winner’s enclosure past his vanquished rivals, to his reward, the adulation of the crowd? Was it a different experience for A Plus Tard? Was it possible for him to feel proud in the aftermath of his success while still under the influence of the flight response? An experience that his body and mind refused to repeat at Haydock?

Allergies

On December 11th, in an interview with Racing TV from Cork Racecourse, Henry de Bromhead confirmed that an unusual blood reading had come to light with A Plus Tard, since Haydock, which was indicative of an allergic response.

This is very interesting in relation to the above hypothesis, in that, again, from human medicine, it has been shown that trauma patients are more likely to develop allergies and auto-immune diseases (where the immune system produces antibodies against its own tissues e.g. rheumatoid arthritis) than the general population. Extrapolating from human to horse, can we take the allergy diagnosis as another indicator that A Plus Tard may be traumatised?

Considering auto-immune diseases in the context of the 3F response in racehorses, I can’t help wondering if Shishkin’s “very rare bone condition” has some auto-immune component to it (Veterinary medicine could shed some light on this) and consequently may be indicative of trauma.

He was struck six times behind the saddle between the second last fence and the finish line in the Clarence House Chase last January, which, no doubt, would have ignited a significant flight reaction.)

Having investigated the flight reaction in racehorses and humans, I am left with a stark question. Is it really necessary to ignite a primitive fear response, born out of a perceived threat to survival, in a natural prey animal, for us to enjoy racing?

I know what my answer is. -

Yours etc.,

Denis O’Connor

Mullinavat,

Co Kilkenny