"WASTING" BY JOCKEYS

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 23, 27 July 1920, Page 4

"WASTING" BY JOCKEYS

CONDEMNED BY COUNCIL OF CHURCHES. \

(BI PU2SB ASSOCIATION.)

CHRISTCHURCH, 26th July. The Council of Churches to-night, on the motion of the Rev. J. J. North, carried the following resolution:—" The Council of Churches calls the attention of the Government and of the public generally to the inhumanity inflicted' on jockeys by the present rules of racing. The council is convinced that the appeal of the jockeys to have the minimum weight lifted from 6st 71b to 7st was one which every principle of humanity required should be granted. The cruelty of wasting down to such a. weight as 6st 71b is repulsive in the- extreme. The council notes that the Racing Conference, largely in the interests of the horses, refused justice and humane conditions to the men. The council urges that the. case is one for State action, and believes that the law should extend t-j jockeys as much protection as it extends to brutes in the Cruelty to Animals Act."

Mr. Sharpe moved: "That we write to the secretary of the Jockeys' Association expressing our symnathy with their object in forming a' strong opposition." The Rev. W. Ro:ady sp-id it was not in the province of the council to say the jockeys should form unions. He was against jockeys, and their trsde, and would riot help to bolster up either. If the jockeys wanted a union, let them paddle their own canoe. Eventually the motion was withdrawn.