Third Equine Welfare and Safety Summit held
At the Jockey Clubs third summit on Racehorse welfare and safety, findings of a report by Glasgow University epidemiologist Tim Parkin were announced. According to the preliminary finding from an industry wide database of injuries and fatalities in Horse Racing, no significant difference in rates of fatalities were found when measured against track surface. It was also explained that the probability of Colts and Stallions are twice as likely to be fatally injured if compared to injuries faced by female racehorses.
The study gathered information on horse racing injuries from almost all American and Canadian racetracks. The study took information on almost 86 percent of all flat-racing starts and steeplechase races for the time duration of a year since November 2008.
The long awaited study on catastrophic injuries on racetracks was expected to settle the debate, once and for all regarding the safety concerns and differences on dirt and synthetic tracks. Although a difference of almost 16 perfect in catastrophic injuries was found on dirt and synthetic tracks, the debate still couldn’t be settled. According to the report, 2.14 horses per 1,000 horses on dirt tracks were inflicted with catastrophic injuries as opposed to 1.78 horses per 1,000 starts for synthetic surfaces during the course of data accumulation - a difference of 0.36 horses per thousand. The data was submitted by 73 tracks in the United States.
Even with a clear difference in rates, the results were not conclusive because the data set for artificial surfaces was significantly smaller. The “confidence interval” for the turf, dirt and synthetic surfaces overlap because of the scarcity of data collected from the surfaces. The variation lies between 1.47 to 2.16 fatalities per 1000 starts for synthetic tracks, simply meaning there isn’t enough data to make a conclusion as yet.
“As the number of starts recorded in the database continues to grow, more complex statistical analyses can focus upon multiple variables studied in concert to better understand the myriad of factors which may contribute to fatal and non-fatal injuries”, Parkin said. Dirt tracks still dominate synthetic and turf tracks in terms of number of tracks.
The study also found no statistically significant difference in fatalities when measured against the length of the racetrack or the weight carried by the horses.
The popularity of synthetic tracks was based in the claims that they reduced the likelihood of fatal injuries to the animals. The inconclusive report presented ensures that the debate continues. But the report was not entirely devoid of conclusive findings. The study conclusively found that female horses are 50 percent less likely to suffer a catastrophic injury than an intact male horse. The sample size was large enough for this conclusion to be drawn with a fair bit of certainty.
The study simply found a difference in rate of fatalities between the two genders but the question of why such a disparity in rates exists is something the raw numbers collected could not shed light on. The numbers don’t necessarily mean that males are at a greater risk of injury simply because of their gender. There are many factors to be considered.
Dr. Mary Scollay, the administrator of the Equine Injury Database and medical director for the Kentucky Horse racing commission, offered a possible explanation for the difference. She argued that an injured female horse is often retired and sent to the breeding sheds and removed from racing as opposed to males, who are more likely to be rehabilitated and brought back to the race tracks if they have no future as stallions. Returning to the racetrack with previous injuries puts the horses at greater risk and that adds to the male fatality rate on racetracks.
According to numbers crunched by the Associated Press, more than 1,200 thoroughbreds were reportedly killed at American racetracks in 2008; a small drop in numbers from 2007’s calculations.
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