Is it time for jumps racing to cross the final finish line?
After more horse deaths in jumps racing, questions are being raised about whether the sport should continue.
On July 14, 10-year-old gelding About The Journey travelled to Morphettville Racecourse in Adelaide to compete in his 44th jumps race.
Why do horses die in jumps races?
- Horse deaths in jumps races are the result of the animals needing to be euthanased due to unrecoverable injuries.
- Broken legs are the most common injury resulting in a need for euthanasia, but broken necks and shoulders have also occurred in falls.
- Horses have also been known to die from exertion-related conditions, such as About The Journey, which died in July from a suspected ruptured aorta.
- There are no figures available for the number of horses who have had to be euthanased days or weeks after a jumps race due to injuries sustained.
It was his final race.
After faltering and falling at a hurdle he got back up and continued to run around the track without his jockey, but died soon after from what was believed to be a ruptured aorta.
About The Journey was the third horse to die in jumps races in Australia this year.
Since then, a fourth horse, Something To Share, has died in a race at Bendigo.
Jumps races are typically run over at least three kilometres — longer than most regular "flat" races — and involve jumping over a number of hurdles, or steeples.
Horse roulette in last bastions of sport
This weekend the richest hurdle race in Victoria, the Grand National Hurdle worth $250,000, will be run at Sandown Racecourse in Melbourne.
On average over the past nine years five horses have died annually in jumps racing in South Australia and Victoria, which are the last two states where the sport is legal.
Every time a horse dies, the debate around the sport's continued existence is revived — something that has been the case for about three decades.
In 1991, a senate-selected committee concluded the sport should be phased out over three years, and while it acknowledged some changes could improve safety, it found that there was a "significant probability of a horse suffering serious injury or even death" by participating in a jumps race.
By the end of the decade, the sport was banned in Queensland and New South Wales (although only exhibition events had been staged in NSW in the decades leading up to the ban), while Tasmania ceased jumps racing due to it being "economically not viable" in 2007.
In 2010, the Equine Veterinary Journal published a study which found that a horse was almost 19 times more likely to die in a jumps race than a flat race.
The ride to recovery
That study arrived just as Victorian jumps racing enjoyed a reprieve.
After a horror season in 2009 in which 10 horses died the sport was on its last legs, but a raft of safety improvements saw the number of deaths drop to three in 2010, leading Racing Victoria to allow it to continue.
Racing Victoria's general manager of international and racing operations, Paul Bloodworth, said the racing body was proud of the fact that since 2009 the average number of deaths per jumps season in Victoria had dropped from 8.5 to 2.5.
"We think that the changes that came about [in 2009] have significantly increased the safety of the sport," Mr Bloodworth said.
"The fatality rate has reduced by over 70 per cent since 2009.
"But we can't rest on our laurels and we have to continue to look at ways of improving the safety of the sport."
But the RSPCA puts the average number of deaths per jumps season in Victoria closer to four.
Rebekah Eyers is an RSPCA South Australia animal welfare advocate and said there was a transparency issue regarding the real death toll in jumps racing.
"We don't know the number of deaths that occur in trials, we don't know the number of deaths that occur after the actual race," Dr Eyers said.
"For example, did that horse that fell last weekend sustain some damage and was euthanased one week later?
"That sort of information is not released so we're really only seeing half the story.
"You can safely say that the figures that we're reporting on are an underestimate of the actual figures."
Mr Bloodworth conceded there is "the occasional fatality in trials as well" and that those figures are not included in its "2.5 fatalities per season" average.
A Racing Victoria spokesperson said deaths in trials has dropped from two per year to one per year since 2009.
Zero deaths 'achievable'
Mr Bloodworth rejected the notion there was an acceptable number of fatalities per year.
"In my view, zero [fatalities] is achievable," Mr Bloodworth said.
"Our preference would be for there to be zero fatalities in the sport, but occasionally just due to the nature of the sport there are fatalities.
"Everyone in the sport loves their horses.
"The owners and stable staff in particular care for their horses at a great level, so any fatality is distressing for them and also the industry at large."
Mr Bloodworth said Racing Victoria's Jumps Review Panel investigates the circumstances of all falls or incidents in a jumps race.
"More often than not it's established that the horse made an error at a jump and that's what caused the fall," he said.
"There's obstacles in jumps racing and occasionally horses make mistakes and fall."
Despite there being three deaths in Victoria this season including two in July, and with roughly 15 races plus numerous trials remaining, Mr Bloodworth said he did not think "that the sport [was] in desperate need of radical change".
Nature of the beast
Dr Eyers disagreed with Mr Bloodworth's assertion that zero fatalities is achievable in the sport.
"The very nature of jumps racing exposes horses to a very high risk of serious injury and death and we know that not just through the science," she said.
"We also know just by the very nature of jumps racing because we're forcing horses to jump in a pack at high speed over obstacles.
"Most of the horses who participate in jumps racing are either near the end of their flat-racing career or they've finished their flat-racing careers, which means most of them would already have cumulative injuries and they would already be getting on in terms of age."
Dr Eyers said the dangers of jumps races are exacerbated by the facts they are typically longer than flat races and the jockeys are heavier.
"You've got older horses carrying more weight over a longer distance being forced to jump at speed in a pack over obstacles," she said.
"The dangers are obvious. Jumps racing cannot be made safe."
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