We're concentrating on the Thoroughbreds, our concerns are strictly re the welfare fund we as owners contribute to. The secrecy around this is alarming, at least Tim Mander is going to raise this during the next sitting of Parliament as questions on notice. We need transparency, we need good governance and credibitly and until Grace Grace answers the questions honestly and transparently the cloud of incompetence and/or mismanagement or 'worse' hangs over their head at Racing Queensland and the Government.
Researchers delve into Thoroughbred exits from one Australian racing season
Research into Australian Thoroughbred racing suggests that 17% of racehorses retire each season and 2.1% die.
Kgelatiiz Shrestha and his fellow researchers at the University of Melbourne, writing in the open-access journalPLOS ONE, said the destinations of Thoroughbreds exiting racing is a high-profile issue, with ethical and welfare implications for both animal welfare groups and racing regulators.
The study team set out to investigate the reasons that Thoroughbreds temporarily or permanently exited racing and training in Australia in the 2017–2018 racing season, and the outcomes for these horses after racing.
An online questionnaire was sent to the last registered trainers of a representative sample of 2509 “inactive” Thoroughbreds.
Inactive horses were defined as those listed as “active” but had not trialed or raced in the last six months of the season, or who had an inactive status recorded in the Racing Australia database.
Of the 1750 responses received, the largest group comprised Thoroughbreds that had permanently exited the racing industry, either through retirement (45%) or death (5.3%).
A relatively large group – 43% – had exited racing only temporarily, and participated in the racing industry the following season.
“The reasons for retirement were predominantly voluntary, such as poor performance or owner’s request,” the researchers reported.
Almost one-third of retirements were because of injuries, with tendon or ligament problems the most frequently listed conditions.
The median age of the 780 study horses categorised as retired was five years. Females were 1.2 times more likely to be retired than males. Geldings were 7.2 times more likely to be retired compared with stallions.
The median age of retirement at five for females was significantly less than the median retirement age for males, at six.
The most frequently reported activities undertaken by retired or re-homed horses were equestrian or pleasure horse activities (45%), followed by those that went on for breeding. “These two categories accounted for three-quarters of all retirement outcomes.”
The researchers found that males were more likely to retire to undertake equestrian or pleasure pursuits than females. Conversely, females were more likely to retire to breeding careers.
Extending the survey results to the wider population of Thoroughbreds that raced or trained in Australia in the 2017–2018 season (37,750 horses in all), indicates that 17% of the population retire each year and 2.1% die.
The researchers found that 90 of the 96 horses reported as deceased in their survey had died because of injury or illness, with only one recorded as deceased because of behaviour.
Of the three horses categorised as sent to an abattoir, all were geldings. The reason given for being sent to an abattoir were behavioural issues in one case, and an unspecified injury or illness during training in the other two cases.
An injury incurred while exercising was the most frequently cited individual circumstance leading to death (54%, or 49 of 90) collectively, with those dying during a race (24) the most frequent, followed by deaths while training (19) and while participating in a trial (6).
Musculoskeletal injuries were the most frequently cited injury or illness leading to death (54%, 49 of 90), with fractures the most frequent individual injury. The majority of fractures occurred during exercise.
Injuries and illnesses included surgical complications (2 horses), with single deaths arising from cancer, electrocution, foaling issues, an eye cyst, a suspected snakebite, a blood clotting disorder, and a multi-drug resistant infection.
Trainers were not able to provide the specified injury or illness leading to death for 5% (5 of 96) of deceased horses.
Discussing their findings, the researchers noted that previous Australian and New Zealand studies have reported that most retirements were voluntary in nature, often due to poor performance or owner requests, which is similar to the findings reported in the current study.
The relatively consistent age of retirement, together with the majority of horses retiring for voluntary reasons, suggests the decision to retire is not entirely dependent on biological or physiological effects, but rather is due to an accumulation of factors, including horse performance and other industry-level effects.
The authors noted that the permanent outcomes in terms of retirement or death for the Thoroughbreds in this study was lower than previous Australian research. “This is likely due to the inclusion of temporary stable exits in the estimates from previous research.”
The median age of horses being voluntarily retired at five is contrary to the belief that horses are forced to retire mainly due to injury, they said.
The information gathered provides a benchmark to assist with resourcing and evaluating programs aimed at incentivising traceability of Thoroughbreds moving outside its jurisdiction into the wider horse industry, the researchers said.
The University of Melbourne study team comprised Shrestha, James Gilkerson, Mark Stevenson and Meredith Flash.
Shrestha K, Gilkerson JR, Stevenson MA, Flash ML (2021) Drivers of exit and outcomes for Thoroughbred racehorses participating in the 2017–2018 Australian racing season. PLoS ONE 16(9): e0257581.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257581
Wisdom has been chasing me but I've always outrun it!
Most of the female retired to stud? Well how much research had to go into that. Even the ones not on thoroughbred studs are on sporting horse breeding stud. The ones that don't do that could be the ones keep by home breeders who just don't continue breeding.
Tragic isn't it & no details. God knows how long it took a vet to get there I can only guess ramp & breaching strap failed OR it turned around & jumped out I had a 2mo foal do it once but luckily was only crawling & the 1st I knew of it was seeing the filly trotting along behind, little the worse for wear
Wisdom has been chasing me but I've always outrun it!
A new state of the art biometric analysis system that
has been described as “game changing” by one leading vet could identify
at-risk horses before they suffer catastrophic injuries on Australian
racetracks, according to its manufacturer.
Known as StrideSAFE,
the technology has been developed by Australian company StrideMASTER and
Kentucky-based Equine Analysis Systems and uses data captured by a
microchip in a horse’s saddlecloth during training and racing to relay
information about its movement.
The data is available immediately
and can be compared against a benchmark to identify changes in horses’
stride length and stride frequency, which are often red flags for a more
serious, musculoskeletal injury.
StrideSAFE has recently been
implemented by the New York Racing Association and StrideMASTER CEO
David Hawke believes the technology would perfectly complement Racing
Victoria’s veterinary screening process.
Hawke said that as well
as providing insights into the soundness of spring carnival aspirants,
the technology could be used across the entire thoroughbred population
in Victoria.
“One of the consequences of the Melbourne Cup
protocol is we now have two standards of welfare; one for those horses
lucky enough to be in the Melbourne Cup and one for the rest of the
nearly 9,000 horses that take to a Victorian racetrack every year,”
Hawke said.
“Given the success of the recent carnival strategy,
the industry now has the opportunity to extend the superior level of
protection Melbourne Cup horses enjoy, to the rest of the horse
population.
“The challenge with the current protocol is its
expensive and difficult to scale up; you can’t do scintigraphy, MRI, or
CT scans on 9,000 horses, and also, you don’t know exactly when the
horse needs that type of investigation, because as we know, a lot of
horses that suffer serious injuries present as asymptomatic at the trot.
“But
there are plenty of examples in human medicine where we overcome this
challenge; breast and bowel cancer screening are two obvious examples
where we use low-cost screening tools to identify which people are
showing adverse changes and then we investigate further with
state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment.”
“We can do a similarly
thing in racing; we can still use the great new diagnostic tools the
industry has invested in, we just need to know which horses to target
them at and when to do it.
“With StrideSafe, we screen horses for the changes in their stride that we know are linked to dangerous outcomes.If we intervene with the industry’s advanced diagnostic equipment at that point, we can save a lot more horses.”
Hawke
said the technology was relatively inexpensive and could easily be
rolled in all jumpouts, trials and races in Victoria, as well as in
trackwork with buy-in from trainers.
StrideMASTER is already in
use in Tasmania, where the governing body uses the system to deliver
sectional timing and positional data.
“Screening horses using
biometric data gathered from races is a complimentary technology that
can be easily slotted into the existing protocol, and because its low
cost and non-invasive, we can easily screen the entire horse
population,” he said.
“We can screen every horse at a race
meeting, that’s 80 to 100 horses, for less than the cost of doing
scintigraphy on one horse.
“This way, all horses have the
opportunity to access the industry’s superior diagnostic equipment, in
time for it to benefit them.”
Hawke was complimentary of Racing
Victoria’s bolstered veterinary screening process for Melbourne Cup
contenders, which was introduced in 2021 following a review into the
spate of fatalities in famous the two-mile handicap.
He said
StrideSAFE could help provide an additional, non-invasive layer to the
screening process and could easily be applied to internationally-trained
horses in the weeks and months prior to their departure for Melbourne.
Hawke
also said the technology would go some way to removing any subjective
decisions by vets as to the suitability of a horse to race.
Gold
Trip was controversially scratched from the Cox Plate and Future Score
withdrawn from the Melbourne Cup on the advice of Racing Victoria vets,
despite the trainers of both horses declaring that their movement was
normal and they were fit to race.
“We can capture this data
remotely so for overseas horses entered in the Melbourne Cup, the sensor
can be sent to the trainer and data can be gathered from races and
training gallops, and analysed by our vets remotely,” he said.
“A lot of the decisions that are made, particularly around gait and soundness are still subjective, opinion-based decisions.
“It
doesn’t have to be that way; if we collect biometric data from horses
every time they race we will be able to say, quantitatively, whether or
not their gait has changed.”
Dr Scott Palmer, the New York State
Equine Medical Director, said he’d already been convinced of the
technology’s benefits in the short time since its introduction in his
jurisdiction.
“Horses that break down (on the racetrack) appear
to be sound at the trot in pre-race inspections, making it difficult to
identify at risk horses through normal observational techniques,” Palmer
said.
“StrideSAFE is truly groundbreaking technology because it
provides us with an objective and practical screening tool that can help
identify horses at increased risk for catastrophic injury in time for
us to intervene.
“In the relatively short time we have been using
the system we have already managed to correlate red flags from the
StrideSAFE system with abnormal pre-race inspection findings and some
high-speed exercise anomalies and injuries.”
Racing Victoria has
indicated that it will review its veterinary screening process following
the 2021 spring racing carnival on the back of feedback from several
high-profile trainers, including Melbourne Cup and Cox Plate-winning
trainer Joseph O’Brien.
Wisdom has been chasing me but I've always outrun it!
Found this story about a runner at Pakenham very interesting, the horse has been seeing a psychologist.
There's plenty of positive energy surrounding Geelong-based trainer Alisa Hinch ahead of Saturday's Pakenham Cup meeting.
Hinch's long-term goal of preparing Drop The Mic for the $175,000 Racing.com VOBIS Gold Bullion (1400m) has been achieved, with her five-year-old gelding due to race this weekend off a career-peak rating of 66.
"I picked this race out for him while he was spelling and tried to work a plan out from there so it's definitely been on the cards since the winter," Hinch said.
Drop The Mic's relatively low handicap mark is 36 points, or 18kg, below the highest-credentialled Gold Bullion runner, Yulong January, who won the race in 2019.
But while Drop The Mic is only receiving a kilo from Yulong January under the set-weights-plus-penalties conditions of the race, weights don't measure inner contentment and Hinch is certain her horses have never been happier, which is parlaying on to the conditioner.
Over the past four weeks, Hinch has engaged animal psychologist Shaun Rogers from alternative health provider Zenith Spiritual for her small stable.
"I know it sounds a bit out there but the little changes I have noticed in the horse since engaging the animal psychologist and concentrating on his energy has been quite dramatic and I think the results are starting to come through now," Hinch said.
Hinch says Rogers' objective is to replace negative energy with positive energy and allow her to horses to 'accept their life as a racehorse'.
"Horses take a lot of our energy and our body language, so he's helped me with my energy, which is influenced by having kids and all sorts of regular dramas that happen in the world," Hinch said.
"The focus is for horses to accept their life as a racehorse and remove potentially traumatic events that may have occurred, which could be a past injury or as simple as racing on an unfavourable surface or having a really tough run."
Drop The Mic has never been too far away from doing himself a mischief. He was rushed to emergency veterinary treatment when he fell ill while being broken in and then interrupted his three-year-old season by slicing his tongue in a tie-up stall ahead of a jumpout.
"We've nearly lost him a couple of times, there's a lot of sentimental value," Hinch said of her $20,000 yearling purchase.
Drop The Mic has raced 24 times for three wins and, frustratingly, 10 second placings in collecting $128,195 in prizemoney. He has not missed a top-three finish from his past seven starts dating back to April, prior to Rogers' intervention.
However, Drop The Mic has raced predominantly at Benchmark 58 and 64 level and it was only after winning his Benchmark 58 handicap (1412m) at Echuca with 63.5kg on October 11 that Hinch stepped the son of Your Song up in class.
Drop The Mic was runner-up, nosed out off a wide run, in the $80,000 Ararat Bowl (1300m) on November 7 and then closed strongly from his rearward settling position for third to Turbeau, a $9 chance in Saturday's Gold Bullion, in the $50,000 Tatura Cup (1450m) on November 20.
"I'm absolutely rapt in the horse with how he performed at Ararat and Tatura. I've always run him three weeks between runs because that's what I felt he needed. But he's now showing me that he's coping with his racing better," Hinch said.
For example, Drop The Mic would typically race and go stand in the back corner of the paddock for four days, he didn't want to be touched for four days after a race.
"But then the psychologist came a couple of days after his latest race on the Monday (after racing two days earlier) and we treated him. On the Tuesday morning I went out to fill up his water and he came over and was pushing at the gate and I thought, 'You have never done that ever in four years, that's dramatic'.
"It's been amazing to watch. I consider myself to be an open, spiritual sort of person so I'm probably not the hardest person to please but just to see nature and the horses just change ever so slightly, every single bit is a slight advantage, so we have to take it where we can.
"If we can get that little one per cent or half a per cent just within the horse, just that little bit more confidence or belief that everything else should fall into place on the day, we can hopefully land the big one."
Teo Nugent will ride Drop The Mic for the first time in the Gold Bullion, where he is a $51 chance to win with Sportsbet, while Yulong January is the $2.80 favourite.
There are many trainers worldwide using animal communicators with great success (group level) but they're little known 1) for fear of ridicule 2) they have a legal edge that they value
Wisdom has been chasing me but I've always outrun it!
There’s some welcome hip pocket relief for trainers
and connections, with a medical subsidy program, dubbed ‘Medicare for
horses’ set to become a permanent fixture after Racing Victoria
announced the continuation of a 10-month trial.
The subsidy
initiative was introduced in June last year with a goal of preventing
injury in racehorses through early detection and has proven extremely
successful with over 130 horses scanned, of which nearly 40 per cent
were found to have potentially serious injuries.
Like Medicare
with humans, the subsidy program helps remove the financial pressures of
accessing advanced diagnostic imaging by slashing costs in half, a big
win for trainers and connections, who could save as much as $1,600 per
scan.
“We are really pleased by the uptake of this program. The
pilot was well supported by a spread of trainers and owners, and it is
great that we can continue supporting Victorian racehorses year-round
with cost effective access to advanced diagnostic imaging,†GM of RV vet
services Dr Grace Forbes said.
“And while the benefits for horses
currently racing are obvious, injury minimisation through the use of
diagnostic imaging can also have a positive impact on the second career
prospects of retired racehorses.
“The subsidy is also helping us
develop a deeper understanding of lameness in racehorses and
contributing to our research with the University of Melbourne into limb
injury prevention.â€
For an owner or trainer to take advantage,
their horse must be listed as active or spelling upon returning to the
stable and must have been located in Victoria for three months prior to
applying for the subsidy.
Bone scanning, MRI, and CT scans are available year-round under the ongoing benefits scheme.
Wisdom has been chasing me but I've always outrun it!
Thankfully one that worked out well for the horse.
On Friday afternoon a horse came up on the Laidley (Q/land) sales page. He was Brave Nick.
This horse was last raced in mid October, and since then had a tendon injury.
Upon speaking to one of his jockeys who described him as one of the nicest horses she’s ridden, then speaking to his trainer who wasn’t even aware he’d been sent to the sales, we can see there is a problem here.
This horse was sent home for a spell and his owner decided that instead of putting the effort into rehabbing an injury, she would send him to a sale yard pen instead.
Apparently thinking he would just find a nice home.
I spoke with the owner and said while this can happen, it’s not a likely outcome.
So many horses sent to sale that are in the pens get sent to slaughter. Horses with injuries have an even lesser chance of getting a save.
The owner agreed to pull him out of the sale and surrender to us at SAHA.
Then the sale manager rang me and said no. The horse must go through.
Weird as I’m pretty sure an an owner owns a horse up until sale? But I may be wrong.
Thankfully a young girl on my Facebook met up with me at the sales and we talked about him. She decided to bid on him and said she was capable of rehabbing his leg.
I literally drove in with a friend and a float to pick him up as he was meant to be pulled out of the sale.
I think it is beyond ridiculous that we should PAY to take a broken down horse when there are so many free surrenders waiting for help.
And here lies the problem. Firstly, isn’t there a rule that an owner has to make two attempts to rehome a horse before it goes to a public sale or slaughter. Or is it on the trainer? How does it work though if the trainer sends a horse home to spell and the owner decides to just sale yard it? Owners aren’t licenced.
So they don’t get fined. Yet a trainer cannot govern an owner to not send a horse to sale or slaughter. So WHAT is the solution.
I’ll tell you. (This won’t fix the problem with owners wiping their hands of horses. This is a bigger problem that I still don’t know how to tackle.)
We need more money from the welfare fund put into helping these horses. More money used to rehab the broken down. Or at worst give them a kinder ending than a slaughterhouse kill pen. Trust me when I say it’s not the same as ‘putting one to sleep.’ It’s strange people refer to it as the same.
A horse walks through a chute into a kill pen. Or kill box. Same same. They get (if they’re lucky and it hits the right spot) a captive bolt to the head to put them out. Then they get their throat slit to bleed them out. This makes their meat taste nicer. (Apparently) For the overseas buyers that have horse meat in their diets.
The issue is a captive bolt is used to render the horse unconscious. Unfortunately when they move their head as horses often do, the bolt doesn’t work like it should. It seems from prior videos seen, that this isn’t really worried about and the horse will have its throat slit anyway. I mean, it dies right. The end result that they’re after. And this is what matters at their end. Horse welfare doesn’t rate highly in a slaughterhouse.
There is also the issue of the next horse and the next horse and the many after that on the day that have the smell of blood and death thick in the air. Anyone who knows horses knows how quickly they pick up on things. So many of these horses don’t want to walk through the chute towards the smell of death.
Sadly this is where they can get hit with pipe or an electric cow prod to get them moving. This makes me sick. Forced to walk to their death, going against every part of their being telling them not to.
What a disgrace. With so many anti racing groups pushing to end things all together, we need to do the best we can to keep our horses out of kill pens. The money is in the industry. Why can’t it get used every year to help more of these horses that are falling through the cracks. We have around 50 Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds currently in care at our rescue. Plus the rest which are other breeds or part breeds. Racing bred horses still outweigh everything else in our numbers.
We are flat fitting anymore horses in.
We don’t have the funds and we don’t have the manpower. We don’t have the funds to PAY more staff.
But we need to bring on more staff to manage the number of horses we have and to get them fit to rehome.
We need help. These horses need help. And I think the racing industry needs to stand up and remember who the main player in this game is. The horses.
I’m thankful someone came in and gave this horse a save.
But without exposure of him this may not have happened. I wring my hands so often when sales are on. It gives me anxiety to know more of our horses are being thrown away.
Houston, we still have a problem. And we need to keep pushing to get it fixed as best we can.
Welcome to share.
Wisdom has been chasing me but I've always outrun it!
Well the problem is money ,in more ways than one, Money is energy . I suppose , attach something to it and then the true meaning of that love is what it is to actually is to , is have a good relationship with what one creates .
Remember Laidley Sales in QLD are on this Saturday. They are expecting a HUGE amount of horses due to being closed down for a few months. If you are looking for a horse that needs help you will definitely find one at this poor sale, if you are not experienced please bring someone very experienced along.
Remember:
There’s no on line bidding, you need to be present or arrange a proxy bidder on your behalf. Transport must be arranged in prior planning, if you live some distance away, temporary accommodation needs arranging for your purchase until it can get to you.
Please do not panic buy after the sale and the dogger has the horse. These men sell at ridiculously inflated prices and your money will just buy 10 more! Please be ready.
Many good horses get overlooked, which are your plain bays, browns, TBs, Standies etc.
Make no mistake these are the horses that end up slaughtered, not so much your pretty paints or pallies.
Doggers will be there for truck loads of meat horses sadly.
If you cannot attend or purchase please consider pledging to a rescue, or foster/adopt from them, it helps massively.
Thanks to all our lovely EVA members for continuing to help horses in dire need
Wisdom has been chasing me but I've always outrun it!
Dennis O'Learydisqualified for welfare breaches after three horse deaths
South Australian trainer Dennis O'Leary and his wife Karen have been hit with lengthy disqualifications for serious welfare breaches that saw three of their retired thoroughbreds euthanised.
After being alerted to concerns regarding the welfare of retired horses in July 2022, Racing SA welfare and veterinary officials immediately inspected the Normanville property to discover the dire situation, making subsequent visits with representatives from the RSPCA.
An independent veterinarian established that three horses were "beyond rehabilitation" and "had to be humanely euthanised", three were treated and rehomed while a further eight horses were sold to a third party with the consent of the RSPCA.
The horses euthanised were Coally Bore, Serenity Jane and 2012 Group 3 DC McKay Stakes winner Outlandish Lad, while All Bar Two, Eureka Pulse and Lunar Melody were saved.
Magical Pearl, who won the Listed Penny Edition Stakes in 2009 and the Listed Balaklava Cup in 2011, was one of the eight horses sold.
The O'Learys were charged with a host of welfare breaches, including failing to take reasonable steps to alleviate any pain suffered by horses in their care, failing to provide veterinary treatment and failing to provide proper and sufficient nutrition.
The long-running case concluded on Tuesday, with both pleading guilty to all charges.
Racing SA stewards disqualified Karen, a registered stable employee, for 24 months and Dennis for 18 months, the latter getting a lesser penalty because he assumed a secondary role in their care and didn't not have day-to-day oversight of the horses.
Dennis has collected 116 winners across the past 10 seasons with Magical Pearl and Outlandish Lad the best horses he's trained.
The O'Learys cannot participate in any form of racing or breeding activities or be present at any racing/training/breeding facility in Australia for the duration of their disqualifications, which begin at midnight on Tuesday, March 28.
"Equine welfare is at the heart of everything we do at Racing SA, and breaches of the rules will not be tolerated," Racing SA chief executive Vaughn Lynch said.
"We are proud to have rehabilitated three of the horses from the property involved and I commend the work of Racing SA's welfare team, Thorough Care SA.
"Racing SA invests significant resources to support the welfare of horses before, during and after their racing career and is committed to delivering world's best practice." Racenet
Where on earth were the authorities before it got to euthanisation stage?
Wisdom has been chasing me but I've always outrun it!
God almighty, I used to love SA racing, not anymore, these two should have been gone for life, how the hell are we to attract young blood to our sport with behaviour like this and the subsequent sentences.
I wish a pox on the houses of all stewards concerned, you bunch of lily livered bastards.
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I can only guess ramp & breaching strap failed OR it turned around & jumped out 
I had a 2mo foal do it once but luckily was only crawling & the 1st I knew of it was seeing the filly trotting along behind, little the worse for wear 
Has met his reserve of $600, a 10yo son of Dane Ripper & High Chap!
