Photography by Ruby Weir-Alarcon
Content warning: racist horse
In a stunning advancement in biological research, scientists at the University of Melbourne have successfully engineered the world’s first racist horse. The development, heralded as a breakthrough in bigotry, raises profound ethical, philosophical and monetary questions.
‘This is an exciting development,’
said lead researcher Dr Ricky Baker, casually feeding the horse a sugar cube as it snorted disapprovingly at a nearby research assistant. ‘We’ve long known that humans have biases, but no one has ever tried to artificially program prejudice into a horse before. And now that we have, we’re really not sure what to do with it.’
The horse, named Grand Wizard Gallop, has been observed displaying clear favouritism and hostility toward certain demographics, though scientists remain baffled by its methodology. ‘There’s no clear pattern, no genetic markers it responds to — it just makes snap judgements based on a nebulous sense of historical discrimination, colonialism and outmoded evaluations of skull shape,’ said co-researcher Dr Margaret Cartwright. ‘Which, actually, confirms that we’ve successfully created the purest form of racism.’
Despite the controversy surrounding the project, the University remains steadfast in its commitment to pushing the boundaries of science, ethics and spending obscene amounts of research funding. ‘UniMelb has always been a leader in cutting-edge biological research,’ a spokesperson said. ‘We lead the field in gene-editing technology, regenerative medicine and now, finally, racist horses.’
Where is the horse stable, anyway? The University maintains a small horse colony dedicated to racism research in the John Medley building. The colony was originally housed in the Richard Berry Building but had to be relocated in 2016 after it was renamed to Peter Hall — a change that, for reasons still unclear, triggered a catastrophic regression in the young foals’ abilities to imprint with the distinct charm of discrimination.
Critics have questioned the purpose of the study, arguing that if discrimination were the goal, researchers could have simply attended any given suburban horse racing event. However, the team insists that Grand Wizard Gallop’s bigotry is contributing to a better tomorrow. ‘This is an exciting development,’ Dr Baker reiterated. ‘This horse’s opinions are helping us in ways science does not yet understand.’
When asked if the team planned to reverse-engineer the process and create a particularly progressive horse, Baker responded with roaring laughter. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he scoffed. ‘Horses can’t be progressive. Everyone knows they’re inherently elitists.’
Grand Wizard Gallop, meanwhile, simply neighed — an action experts say contained a ‘troubling amount of subtext’.