A horse died every three days on Australian racetracks in the past year – a total of 115 fatalities, according to annual figures collected by animal rights activists.
But the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses, which collated the data, said the true figure was likely to be higher because the deaths of animals in track work or after retirement “quite often” went unreported.
Jumps racing had a particularly high loss rate, said Ward Young, from the coalition. “On average about 50% of horses each year will not reappear in jumps racing the next year,” he said.
There was inevitably “some element of risk” in any industry that relied on livestock. “However, our main contention is that a lot of that risk can be averted so that horses don’t have to die in these numbers,” he said.
Restricting the use of whips, ending two-year-old racing and implementing mandatory retirement plans –funded by levies on betting turnover – could all help to address the issue.
“We think that [the industry] should stive to get to as few fatalities in horse racing as possible,” Young said.
The figures – 115 for the year, one every 3.2 days – were collated from stewards’ reports published on racing bodies’ websites, as well as from sources inside stables.
Peter McGauran, the chief executive of Racing Australia, said each racehorse death “breaks the heart of its owner, trainer and strapper”, but the industry’s overall death rate was very low.
The 115 deaths represented just 0.06% of the 196,000 starters each year in Australia.
“And we’re constantly looking at how to predict a catastrophic injury or fatality, because remember, they’re being ridden by jockeys, so we’re equally motivated by jockey safety,” he said.
The “death watch” shows that during the 2014 Melbourne Cup, as well as the two horses which died after the race, another two died in events in other states.
One of those horses, Black Rebel, died in races at Corowa in New South Wales, and yet the gelding’s racing record lists him as “active”, highlighting the difficulties in accounting for the fate of many animals.
Owners are required to fill out a stable return, indicating if a horse had been sold to a knackery, but Young said there was little effort to verify this information.
“The enforceability of that return is bare bones ... They can essentially say whatever they want,” he said.
McGauran said the stable returns were audited at random and owners were unlikely to be doctoring the forms.
“It would be a very big risk for an owner or trainer to take, because of the reputational damage,” he said. “It’s not a foolproof system but it’s a very good guide.”
New restrictions on whipping have been recently introduced, and there was merit to ideas such as the mandatory retirement plan.
“We’d certainly consider any of these views,” McGauran said. “We have to meet community expectations. The idea of a competitive animal sport operating in its own bubble is archaic. We operate under a social licence.”
This year’s figure is slightly lower than the same period in 2013-14, which registered 125 racehorse deaths.
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