Horses feel whip strikes with the same intensity humans would. A 2020 study comparing horse and human skin found that the pain-sensing outer layer of horse skin is equally thick and equally rich in nerve endings as human skin. While horses do have thicker skin overall, that extra thickness sits in the deeper dermis, which does not insulate them from the sharp, surface-level pain of a whip strike. The science points clearly toward yes: whipping causes pain, and growing evidence suggests it doesn’t even improve race performance.
Horses Feel Whip Pain the Same Way Humans Do
For decades, the racing industry operated on the assumption that horses have tough hides and don’t experience whip strikes the way people would. A neuro-histological study published in the journal Animals dismantled that claim. Researchers compared skin samples from the gluteal region (where whips typically land) of horses and humans, examining both skin thickness and the density of pain-detecting nerve fibers.
The results were striking. There was no significant difference in epidermal thickness between humans (26.8 µm) and horses (31.6 µm). More importantly, the nerve fiber counts in this outer layer were statistically identical. Horses do have thicker skin overall, ranging from 1.2 to 7 mm compared to the human average of about 1.2 mm, but that additional thickness is all in the dermis, the layer beneath the pain-sensing surface. The researchers concluded that humans and horses have “the equivalent basic anatomic structures to detect cutaneous pain.”
In plain terms: a whip strike on a horse’s hindquarters produces a pain signal through the same biological machinery that would make you flinch if someone struck you with the same force on bare skin.
Whipping Doesn’t Make Horses Run Faster
The most common justification for whip use is that it encourages a horse to run harder in the final stretch of a race. Multiple studies have tested this claim, and the evidence consistently fails to support it.
A 1988 study found that whip strikes increased a horse’s step frequency but shortened its stride length, resulting in no net change in speed. A later analysis of thoroughbred races measured whip use and speed in the final 600 meters and found that horses were actually slowest in the last 400 meters, precisely when jockeys were whipping most frequently.
Research published in Frontiers in Animal Science looked specifically at trotting races and found no correlation between the number of whip strikes and a horse’s finishing position among the top three. Most strikes in the final 100 meters of a race were followed by deceleration, not acceleration. The researchers raised a particularly damning possibility: if a horse is already slowing down when it receives a whip strike, the strike may actually train the horse to associate the whip with slowing down. In behavioral terms, the whip could be teaching horses the opposite of what jockeys intend.
“Padded” Whips Are Not Necessarily Gentler
Modern racing regulations typically require padded whips designed to be “energy-absorbing.” The assumption is that a softer popper (the flat piece at the end of the whip) reduces the force on impact. A study published in the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science tested this directly by measuring the forces three different riding crop designs exerted on a flat target plate.
The findings were counterintuitive. Crops with softer, cushioned poppers could still deliver forces equal to or greater than traditional leather-tipped crops. The reason is that the stiffness of the crop’s core matters more than the material on the tip. A flexible core absorbs energy before it reaches the horse, while a stiff core transmits it regardless of how soft the padding is. The study challenged the widespread belief that simply switching to padded whips makes the practice meaningfully less harmful.
What the Regulations Allow
In the United States, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) permits jockeys to strike a horse up to six times during a race. Exceeding that limit triggers a tiered penalty system. Going one to three strikes over the limit is a Class 3 violation with no loss of prize money. Four to nine strikes over the limit, or ten or more, results in the horse being disqualified from purse earnings.
The Australian Veterinary Association has taken a firmer position, stating that whip use “must not be used to influence the result of a competitive event” and that racing codes should work toward a framework where whipping for encouragement is not condoned. The AVA also cited evidence that horses are more likely to sustain fractures when a whip is used during racing, and that human safety is preserved when horses race without whip use, countering the argument that whips are needed for jockey safety.
How Horses Show Pain and Distress
Horses can’t verbalize pain, but they display it through well-documented behavioral signals. Conflict behaviors associated with discomfort include tail swishing, ear pinning (tilting the ears back), head tossing, and increased tension in the facial muscles. Relaxation looks like the opposite: a dropped lower lip, lowered head, soft eyes, and ears falling gently to the sides. Researchers studying equine stress responses have confirmed that behaviors like tail wagging, ear tilting, and head tossing correspond to elevated cortisol levels, the primary stress hormone in mammals.
During races, horses being whipped commonly display several of these distress markers. The difficulty is that these signals are easy to miss at racing speed, and the competitive context normalizes behaviors that, in any other setting, would be recognized as signs of pain.
The Welfare Science Assessment
Animal welfare science increasingly evaluates practices through frameworks like the Five Domains Model, which considers nutrition, environment, health, behavioral interactions, and mental state. Whip use touches at least two of these domains: it causes a negative physical health experience (pain) and a negative mental state (fear, distress). When the practice also fails to achieve its stated purpose of improving performance, the welfare cost exists with no offsetting benefit to the animal.
The cumulative picture from the research is difficult to reconcile with continued whip use for competitive advantage. Horses have the same pain-sensing anatomy as humans in the skin layer where whips land. Padded whips can deliver just as much force as traditional ones. Whipping in the final stretch correlates with slower speeds, not faster ones. And major veterinary bodies are calling for the practice to end. The evidence doesn’t leave much room for the argument that whipping is anything other than painful and, by the sport’s own performance goals, ineffective.