The Stories We Inherit About Risk in Racing | Jessie McCarthy on Welfare and Social Licence

<p>&quot;It&#39;s in their constitution to be injured.&quot;</p><p>&quot;We&#39;ve bred them to be like this.&quot;</p><p>Both of these came up in the same conversation — and the paradox sitting between them is one of the patterns <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/evj.14561" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Jessie McCarthy&#39;s research</a> surfaces about how racing talks to itself about risk.</p><p>In this week&#39;s episode, Karen and Meta sit down with Jessie McCarthy, a final-year veterinary student at the University of Surrey, with a Master&#39;s in Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law from the University of Glasgow. Her recently <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/evj.14561" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">published paper</a>, co-authored with Euan Bennett and Heather Cameron-Whytock, takes a less common approach to social licence in racing: rather than starting from outside the sport, she interviewed twelve insiders about how they perceive the risks horses face, and the language they reach for when things go wrong.</p><p>What emerges is a quietly revealing portrait of a sport in conversation with itself. Risk often gets reframed as a communication problem rather than a welfare one.</p><p>Responsibility gets dispersed across the sport — until, as Jessie&#39;s research shows, it often quietly settles on the horses themselves. Their fragility. Their nature. Their breeding.</p><p>But of course — we bred them.</p><p>In this conversation, we explore:</p><ul><li>Why the words we reach for (&quot;accident,&quot; &quot;incident,&quot; &quot;adverse event&quot;) shape what we believe is possible</li><li>How tradition and identity in the horse world can act as a brake on reform</li><li>Pin firing, generational change, and what the next generation of equine vets is choosing differently</li><li>Why a horse&#39;s welfare may be shaped less by race day than by the other 360 days</li><li>The question of equine consent — and why only one of twelve stakeholders raised it</li><li>And, offered any wish in the world, Jessie&#39;s is gloriously simple: more turnout, more friends, more forage</li></ul><p>A thoughtful, generous conversation with a young vet whose research invites the horse world — insiders and outsiders alike — to reflect on the stories we&#39;ve inherited.</p><p>🎧 Subscribe and share with someone who loves horses.</p><p> 🌐 changingrein.com.au</p><p> 📧 <a href="mailto:team@changingrein.com.au" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">team@changingrein.com.au</a></p><p>#ChangingRein #EquineWelfare #SocialLicence #Racing</p>