BLOG: Obviously, but we all know “Sir” Mark won’t despite video evidence of him whipping an uncooperative horse. With Kurt Zouma’s cat abuse still fresh in our memories, this begs the question, should sports personalities lose more over their treatment of animals?

Kiwi Olympian Mark Todd gained his CBE in 2013 for services to equestrian sport, having won individual gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 games, plus accolades at a slew of other horse events. But a video posted to TikTok of all places, showing Todd repeatedly whipping a horse for refusing to cross a water obstacle, has shown that even horseriding’s leading figures can’t be relied upon to uphold the minimum standard of welfare to animals.

We’ve said it before here on Surge Media and we’ll say it again. Sports personalities are supposed to be role models, examples to others and especially the younger generations aspiring to reach the pinnacle of any profession. We quite literally place them on pedestals and reward them with medals, trophies and other symbols of excellence. Yet that has to come with an expectation, and as readily as we reward, we should also remove.

Everyone makes mistakes, no human is perfect, but there has to be some kind of consequence or else what kind of message does that send out? While the Queen is unlikely to revoke Todd’s knighthood, the British Horseracing Authority has at least publicly stated that his actions fell well short of their standards, whatever they’re worth, and is now “looking into the incident”.

Should we have much faith in the BHA’s promise to investigate, let alone mete out any meaningful punishment? Without wishing to sound too cynical, the day an equestrian organisation seriously reprimands one of its own for whipping a horse is the day West Ham footballer Kurt Zouma hands in his resignation for kicking his cat. It’s just not going to happen, because in both cases, they’re only animals and anything remotely career-damaging is overreacting, right?

The example of Kurt Zouma is still very much fresh in our minds, with his abhorrent treatment of companion cats supposedly in his care. Another sporting personality, this time a Premier League footballer, at least with Zouma the reaction from the public and even London Mayor Sadiq Khan was rather more condemning. The debate about whether or not he should lose his job at West Ham was pretty divisive, with Surge co-director Ed Winters appearing on LBC Radio to debate the issues.

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As Ed points out, however, in both his radio interview and a previous video about Zouma posted to his Earthling Ed channel, public outrage at cases of abuse against companion animals is understandable, but deeply hypocritical given what we do to millions of farmed animals every year, not including the billions of fish we pull from the water.

Sadly, this irony was somewhat lost on LBC host Rachel Johnson - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s sister, no less - who preferred instead to use questionable comparisons to pick holes in the animal rights argument and drag us instead into a cancel culture debate. The question really isn’t about whether or not Zouma should be cancelled, but whether even asking that is a mass case of people in glass houses.

Should those outraged at Zouma and Todd be throwing those proverbial stones when they also pay for pigs to live and die horribly, for hens to suffer for their eggs? What about the calves taken from their mothers in the dairy industry - a topic brought to the fore with last night’s episode of Panorama on BBC One that featured shocking new footage from an undercover investigation by Animal Equality.

Once again, many people watching last night’s expose of the current state of UK dairy farming took to social media to declare milk farming abhorrent, but most called for greater welfare without understanding that calf separation will always be an aspect of milk production. Even the example of an ethical farm is still very much far from serving the animals’ best interest - calves may stay with their mothers for much longer, but only so they can grow faster and be sold off for beef.

Whether it’s improving welfare or ensuring more meaningly consequences for sporting personalities who abuse animals, as Claire Hamlett wrote recently for Surge, at least public outcry resulted in something rather than nothing. But the flipside is that we stop there, and don’t look further to the crimes each of us commits every time we go to the supermarket, or order food in a restaurant.

The next time you get up in arms about a horse being abused, or a cat getting kicked, great, but then go take a look in your refrigerator.

Andrew Gough is Media and Investigations Manager for Surge.

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