Horse racing industry leaders meet in Lexington for safety summit

Published: Jun. 25, 2024

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) — In 2023, a dozen horses died at Churchill Downs.

Leaders in the horse racing industry want to stop sudden deaths and injuries from happening. Just above the 50-yard line at Lexington’s Kroger Field, a group of prominent names in the racehorse industry met Tuesday for one united cause.

“It’s all about bringing people together that have best practices that help promote safety and soundness in our horses,” said Jamie Haydon, President of Grayson Jockey Club Research Foundation.

It’s the 11th year that the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit has met like this, but the groups organizing have been meeting to combat the issue of racehorse fatalities since 2006.

“We’ve been able to show in a culture of safety in our industry that we’ve been able to decrease those injuries and fatalities by over 34% in that timeframe. So it’s not ‘why now?’ it’s ‘how come we haven’t done it before’ when we have been! And now we’re showing you the results,” said Haydon.

In the all-day summit, anyone with an interest can come listen to a number of panels describing future practices to keep horses safer, and highlight successful ones of the past.

“Whether it’s post-injury screening of horses, or maintenance on your racing surface, or monitoring sudden death . . . these are all areas that we will talk about today and areas that ought to affect all of our performance horses,” said Haydon.

Tuesday’s Horse writes:

They have been saying the same thing as long as we can remember, while racehorses continue to break down, often dying, at an alarming rate.

How about this statement? “We’ve been able to decrease those injuries and fatalities by over 34% in that timeframe.” Go stick your heads in a bucket.

And remember this. The number of racehorse fatalities fed to the public does not include those horses who can no longer race or no longer wanted and sent to slaughter. With all the doping in horseracing, imagine what dangerous chemicals could be lurking in that meat — that some eat raw. —TH

1 thought on “Horse racing industry leaders meet in Lexington for safety summit”

With the experience we have in the racing industry seeing the usage of med.s on a daily basis, if the consumers of horse meat knew what they were eating we bet they would stop! For the record we are plant based eaters & never consume any animal sourced foods. All of our family members have all suffered from cardio problems with congestive heart failure & strokes. By not eating any animal based foods we are able to control cholesterol at safe levels without med.s.

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