Our view on British racing’s new five-year welfare strategy

Our Chief Executive Roly Owers says:

“We welcome the strategy, which builds on what was achieved under the previous version and has a deeper focus on a lot of the right areas, including traceability and quality of life.

“Providing all horses bred for racing with a good life must be the key priority. We would especially like to see investment in better measuring whether racehorses are provided with a good life, at all stages.

“Knowledge of what a good life looks like for a horse has evolved even in the seven years since the last strategy was launched, so it’s right to focus on how to use changing evidence to modernise ways of managing racehorses. It’s important to put the horse at the centre and consider quality of life not from our point of view, but from the horse’s perspective.

“We fully support the efforts in the new strategy to improve safety for horse and rider and reduce avoidable risk by looking not just at what takes place on the track but what happens off it too. We know the ‘other 23 hours’ have a huge impact on a horse’s health and welfare.

“It’s refreshing to see a commitment to lifetime responsibility in this strategy underpinned by a plan of action. World Horse Welfare has said for some time that the welfare of any horse cannot be protected unless they are traceable, and we applaud racing for not only accepting this lifetime responsibility but committing to investing the resource and energy needed to fulfil it. 

“We welcome the greater emphasis on transparency and accountability, but would like to see further research on the use of the whip as proposed in the previous strategy.

“As a welfare organisation, it is no surprise that we would like to see racing move further and faster on evolving their approach to welfare, but we believe this strategy is realistic and deliverable and should result in better experiences for all horses involved with racing in Britain.”

Find out more about our vision for the responsible involvement of horses in sport.