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INJURIES AND FATALITIES
Like most sports, racing carries risks. No one wants to see valuable and valued racehorses killed and injured. The Authority’s aim is to ensure that no death or injury takes place which could have been prevented. The measures in place towards this aim include:
- Racecourses have experienced Veterinary Surgeons and horse ambulances to ensure rapid treatment
- We monitor and assess all racecourse injuries and fatalities
- Our Veterinary Officers oversee racehorse welfare on every raceday
- Our Course Inspectors review all race surfaces and jumps
- Strict anti-doping rules and testing ensure drugs do not mask injuries
- Racecourses, the Authority, and people in racing all work through day to day improvements and research to reduce risks
- We conduct detailed investigations if we are concerned at increased incidence of fatalities or injuries
- Racing talks to welfare organisations, including the RSPCA and World Horse Welfare and they can, and do, attend races
In particular around 1/3 of fatalities are long bone fractures. Despite veterinary advances there remain huge mechanical difficulties where a repaired bone must be part of the support for a half a ton horse. The recuperation of a large four legged animal remains a major surgical and welfare challenge.
Over the years, despite a substantial increase in the number of runners, the average number of fatalities in a year has decreased. We hope to see that number reduced still further. At present about 2 in every thousand runners are fatalities. Flat and All Weather racing accounts for around 0.6 fatalities of every thousand runners, Jump racing accounts for just over 4 fatalities of every thousand runners.
© British Horseracing Authority 2009
We recognise there is still more to do, and because of the greater risk we are especially focusing our efforts on jump racing. Racing is funding work based on epidemiological studies that identify modifiable risk factors to enable the design and implementation of appropriate and effective interventions. Use of racetrack epidemiology is as close as the industry can get to the very strong evidence provided by randomised controlled trials.
It is important to use large amounts of data taken over several years to ensure results are robust and can be reliably applied. This is why the Authority publish figures that cover a number of years, but does not publish at greater frequencies, or breakdowns by course or other factors. However we do publish summaries of our investigations if particular issues do arise, for example at:
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