Sarah Hinchliffe

Tim Grande, the California Horse Racing Board's (CHRB) chief official veterinarian, remembers sitting among the first panel of experts charged with screening horses for elevated risk of injury even before they could be entered to race. "If an entry came across the racing office's desk, we had to give it approval before it could be accepted," said Grande, of the then new addition to the regulatory furniture mandated by the California Governor's office in the wake of the 2019 Santa Anita welfare crisis. "It wasn't particularly practical with just the...

The equine fatality rate in North America has shrunk significantly over the last 15 years, from 1.98 per 1,000 starts in 2009 to 1.32 last year. Still according to officials, that number remains higher than other racing jurisdictions around the globe such as Australia, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Japan, and New Zealand. If there was a unifying theme running through Tuesday's Jockey Club Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit, however, it was that the industry has all the tools necessary to uniformly reduce fatality rates to meet and beat...