Horse Racing: Animal Welfare

(asked on 8th March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many horses in the racing industry have died in training, as opposed to on course as a result of racing, in the UK in each of the last five years; and what the (a) ages of those horses and (b) causes of death were.


Answered by
Victoria Prentis Portrait
Victoria Prentis
Attorney General
This question was answered on 11th March 2021

Ensuring the welfare needs of racehorses are well met, both during their racing lives and afterwards is a priority. The British Horseracing Authority (BHA), British racing’s governing and regulatory body, is responsible for the safety of racehorses at British racecourses. The BHA works alongside the RSPCA and World Horse Welfare to make horseracing as safe as possible.

The Government welcomed the creation of the racing industry’s Horse Welfare Board (HWB), which was formed in March 2019. The Board is chaired by Barry Johnson, former President of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (who is independent of the BHA) and includes members from across the racing industry, veterinarians and animal health and welfare experts. The Board has assured Defra that it is committed to doing all it can to make the sport safer and improve welfare outcomes. The HWB published its five-year horse welfare strategy “A life well lived” last year:

http://media.britishhorseracing.com/bha/Welfare/HWB/WELFARE_STRATEGY.pdf.

The strategy contains 20 recommendations for the industry aimed at ensuring the best possible safety and quality of life for racehorses.

One of the plan’s five identified outcomes (outcome 3 - 'Best possible safety') aims to reduce and minimise, as far as reasonably possible, avoidable injuries and fatalities to racehorses. This targets a reduction in injuries and fatalities on racecourses but also those that occur in, or as a result of, training or pre-training methods, or which are linked to breeding. The HWB has underlined the importance of data to better understand the causes of injuries and fatalities to help achieve this outcome.

Defra does not hold any information related to racehorse fatalities including those that have occurred during training. However, as well as collating and publishing data on racing fatalities, the BHA, following the recommendations contained within the HWB’s strategy, is working to improve data gathering in relation to thoroughbred racehorse fatalities in training. This includes analysis of data and reporting mechanisms which already exist regarding horses in training, and how these can be improved to provide additional data on fatal injuries.

The Secretary of State has not met representatives of either the BHA or the HWB between 2019 and now. I can confirm that the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at that time met with the BHA’s Director of Equine Health and the HWB’s Independent Chair in May 2019 where both sides agreed that further action was required to make the sport safer and to improve animal welfare standards across the industry. My officials plan to meet with the BHA in due course and will continue to engage with the sector to ensure that the welfare of racehorses, and reducing the fatalities and injuries that result from racing, remain at the forefront of the BHA’s priorities in delivering the plan’s outcomes.

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