Race Horse Deaths On British Racecourses In 2012
Animal Aid maintains an online database cataloguing the deaths of racehorses on British racetracks. This report summarizes the statistics for fatalities in 2012, during which 143 horses were reported to have died. As the database only catalogues officially confirmed deaths, Animal Aid estimates that around 50 deaths will be missing from each year of the database, due to concealment by the racing industry. National Hunt racing (jumping of hurdles or fences, or certain flat races) accounted for 70% of the deaths, with approximately one horse death every 5 race meetings.
[Abstract excerpted from original source.]
“Animal Aid’s Race Horse Deathwatch (www.horsedeathwatch.com) is an online database that catalogues race horse deaths on British racecourses.
The British Horseracing Authority – racing’s horse welfare regulator – refuses to publish the names of individual horses killed, the number of horses killed and the racecourse on which they died. Animal Aid launched its Deathwatch website in 2007 to address this lack of transparency.
While every effort is made to catalogue all horses who are killed on British racecourses, Animal Aid knows that a large number – likely to be in the region of 50 individuals – will be missing each year from the Deathwatch database. This is due to the industry concealing, whenever possible, horse deaths. Animal Aid only includes horses in its listings who have been officially confirmed, through our direct research, as victims.”