Sandra Kyle is an animal advocate and writer.

OPINION: He’s Ric, an 8-year-old bay gelding, had a disastrous fall at a jumps race at Egmont Racing Club Hawera, last month, and was euthanised.

The fall was edited out of Love Racing NZ’s playback footage, although it clearly showed that as he approached the jump, and his death, he was whipped three times.

Subsequent races continued, with little delay. The needless death of a noble horse apparently swept aside and then covered up. As the racing industry exists to provide entertainment to the public and gambling profits to the punters, “the show must go on”.

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He’s Ric was the 11th horse to die on New Zealand tracks in the past 12 months. Thus far there have been 246 recorded injuries, 85 of them serious.

However we don’t know the true death toll. It would be much greater if it included those who were trained so hard that they break down before they run a single race, the ones sent prematurely to the abattoir, and the ones who are shot and buried in pits at the back of paddocks.

Make no mistake: horse racing kills racehorses. To call it a “sport” is a cynical euphemism. There is only one party who is a willing participant in this competition.

Horses do not want to race, but are forced to, as evidenced by endless footage our group has taken of horses being forced into starter gates. When it all goes tragically wrong it is the horse who had no say in the matter, and the one who never wanted to compete in the first place.

Jumps racing is intrinsically dangerous and cruel to horses. It is the combination of jumping and racing that cannot be made safe.

When racing in a jumps race (low fences, or larger, brush fences), the horse is confronted with the task of galloping at high speed and being forced to clear obstacles of considerable height. That would be challenging enough in itself, but in a race they are closely surrounded by a group of other horses all attempting the same.

To avoid injury or death the horse must clear each and every obstacle with accuracy. As horses fatigue, this task becomes more difficult. That is why we see most falls occurring in the latter stages of a race, as was the case with He’s Ric.

Most jumps horses are older horses who have been retired from flat racing. This extends their usefulness to the industry, but it is even more harmful, statistically, to the horses.

When they are retired from flat racing, equine athletes should be allowed to live out their days in peace, rather than continue to be put in harm’s way.

With 11 more jumps races scheduled this season, the chances are high that there will be another fatality. There will certainly be many more injuries.

When are we going to stop betting on the lives of innocent, vulnerable creatures? In Australia, Victoria is the only state that still allows jumps racing. We should follow our neighbour’s example, and ban it forever in New Zealand.