Horseracing Industry and Regulatory Body in England Exposed by Groups: Despite Deaths, Regulatory Body Clears Industry

Again, it’s money over enforcing standards of care. Same there as in the US.

Here’s a paragraph from the article below that sums up the issue:

“Animal rights bodies yesterday hit out after the Horseracing Regulatory Authority, which is responsible for ensuring that racecourses are maintained in a fit and proper state, gave Wolverhampton a clean bill of health despite the fact that five horses have died at the track since early November.”

Article:

Animal rights groups aghast at Wolverhampton all-clear

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/horseracing/story/0,,1975680,00.html

Chris Cook
Wednesday December 20, 2006
The Guardian

Animal rights bodies yesterday hit out after the Horseracing Regulatory Authority, which is responsible for ensuring that racecourses are maintained in a fit and proper state, gave Wolverhampton a clean bill of health despite the fact that five horses have died at the track since early November.

"Economic interests are being put far ahead of the animals' welfare," said Dene Stensall of the charity Animal Aid. "When a horse pulls up on a Flat track, there's either something wrong with the horse or something wrong with the track. Because so many horses have pulled up or incurred injuries at Wolverhampton, we believe that those injuries speak for themselves," Stensall added.

Article continues
The RSPCA also expressed concern about the layout of the Midlands course. "We have visited and examined the course since this happened," said the RSPCA's spokeswoman Helen Briggs, "and we think that, because the bends are particularly tight, that places an extra responsibility on the jockeys to ride extremely carefully and to look after their mounts." The HRA should instruct jockeys to take such care, she added.

Race meetings at Wolverhampton have developed an unseasonably gloomy atmosphere in recent weeks, following a number of incidents in which horses have fallen, others have been brought down and jockeys have been left strewn across the all-weather racing surface. Five horses have been destroyed at Wolverhampton since last month, an astonishingly high attrition rate for a course that features no obstacles and where the races are sometimes as short as five-eighths of a mile.

"The HRA are concerned about their contract with bookmakers, about keeping racing going through the winter," said Stensall. "Until a proper engineering survey is done over a period of weeks, not just someone coming and having a quick look at it, and [they] really get to the bottom of it, the course isn't safe and racing should be suspended."

Wolverhampton's clerk of the course, Fergus Cameron, said: "Our fatality rate is roughly in line with the national average for Flat tracks." He added that a run of bad luck was behind the deaths.

Paul Struthers, a spokesman for the HRA, claimed riders were aware of any dangers. "I would think it would only be responsible of the jockeys to ride carefully anyway without needing additional urging from us."