Horse Racing: Animal Welfare

(asked on 5th September 2016) - 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 racehorses (a) died and (b) were destroyed on British racecourses or shortly afterwards due to injury sustained in (i) flat, (ii) all weather and (iii) national hunt racing in (A) 2013, (B) 2014 and (C) 2015.


Answered by
George Eustice Portrait
George Eustice
This question was answered on 13th September 2016

The Government does not hold information on racehorse fatalities. However, the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) publishes annual statistics on their website on the number of racehorse fatalities. The statistics do not record whether the horse died of its injuries or was destroyed at the racecourse and do not differentiate between the different sorts of horseracing, but according to the BHA the numbers of racehorses that died at racetracks for each of the last three years are provided in the table below:

Year

Number of racehorse fatalities at British racetracks

2013

196

2014

189

2015

156

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