BHA: We need to go to the public and show that horse welfare is our top priority

The BHA’s lead administrator on equine welfare underlined on Tuesday that the topic was the governing body’s “top priority” but stressed that widescale industry support was vital.

David Sykes, the BHA director of equine health and welfare, placed great store in the new equine board being assembled, saying: “It will have projects within the industry, but decisions need to involve the whole of the industry.

“The sport needs to be proactive. It needs to go to the public and show that horse welfare is our top priority.”

Sykes told delegates at the Horseracing Industry Conference in London that one element of equine welfare which would benefit from industry-wide support was “a centralised database controlled by the industry”.

He added: “We have a database now, but it sits in 50 different places, therefore we have trouble in making evidence-based outcomes.”

Nevertheless, he said, “there is a lot going on, and I don’t think we’re really in that bad a place".

Outlining recent initiatives, he pointed to the introduction of the 30-day foal notification and the development of a welfare assessment tool as being especially noteworthy.

“Foal notification gives us traceability and has implications for horse movements and is important to the anti-doping policy,” he said.

Foal notification gives traceability and has implications for horse movements and is important to the anti-doping policyCredit: PXHere

“The welfare assessment tool is a three-year project with Bristol University, funded by the Racing Foundation, which will assess, benchmark and monitor welfare.”

The Bristol venture has so far concentrated on jumps stables in its vicinity and will be rolled out shortly to Flat yards, with Sykes expecting its development “to make deliberate moves to improve welfare” in the training environment.

He added: “If we can empower individuals working for stables, they can make suggestions to improve those individual stables.”

Responding to a question about recent public criticism of racing, Sykes said: “This is never going to be a zero-fatality game. The issue is that we need to say there is a lot to equine welfare, the low-hanging fruit are gone.

“We’ve got to tell the public there are great stories in the sport and we are doing everything we can to reduce the risks.”

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