Racehorse injuries and fatalities are a side effect of training and competition. The problem with equine injuries is that they so often result in death. A 2005 study by the United States Department of Agriculture found that injuries are the second leading cause of death in horses, second only to old age. Nureyev's recovery from a broken leg while retired at stud in 1987 typifies the struggle horses have after being injured.
Two years after Secretariat's recordbreaking US Triple Crown took the sport in the United States to a new level of popularity, the breakdown and death of Ruffian brought on a new era of safety concerns. Racehorses had been breaking down for centuries, but never before in an event so widely seen as the great match race between Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure at Belmont Park with 18 million viewers. The horse racing industry has been trying to adapt to the increased safety concerns ever since. "I personally think that in a very real way, we're almost held to a higher standard because of the horses—they don't make the decision to do this. And I think that's fair," said Nick Nicholson, the president and chief executive of Keeneland.
Classification
The racing industry will always be faced with the unavoidable and inevitable accident when horses get bumped or tangled in traffic, trip, or take a bad step. 1885 Kentucky Derby winner Joe Cotton was euthanized after breaking his leg while tripping over two other horses who had fallen in front of him in an 1888 race. Accidents and disputes were so bad in 1732 England, soon after nobility first started racing Thoroughbreds, that participants were ending up in court. The "Sport of Kings" has been described as an exercise in controlled chaos. The jockeys can be daredevils, and the racehorses can be unpredictable. As a response to the chaos, stewardship of racing began to evolve in 1751 when the first set of recorded racing rules were printed and in 1752 when Britain's Jockey Club started to become racing's first regulatory authority.
Injuries, unlike accidents, do not happen by chance. The science of injury prevention has demonstrated that injuries and the events leading up to injuries are not random. Like disease, they follow a distinct pattern. Studying these patterns has made it possible to learn to predict and prevent injuries from occurring. Injuries, whether unintentional or intentional, can be considered any physical damage or harm caused to the body resulting in impairment or destruction of health. Injuries lead to death, disability, and financial loss. In 1990, apprentice jockey Benny Narvaez was paralyzed from the chest down after his horse threw him while jumping over another horse who had broken down directly in front of him during a race at Tampa Bay Downs. A jury found that Tampa Bay Downs was responsible for Narvaez's injury because the track veterinarian failed to perform an adequate pre-race examination on the horse that broke down.
International Thoroughbred fatality rates
National television coverage of the Breeders' Cup by NBC helped generate millions in revenue and publicity for Thoroughbred racing in the mid to late 1980s. Since the inaugural running of the event in 1984, though, there has been an injury in virtually every Cup renewal. That national publicity backfired when horse racing increasingly came under attack from animal rights groups in the early 1990s. In the 1990 Breeders' Cup Distaff, champion two-year-old and three-year-old filly Go for Wand got back up after breaking her ankle. She was unable to finish the race; however, she did stand up. Handlers caught her and made her lie down; she was immediately euthanized on the track. Then, in the 1992 Breeders' Cup Sprint, the five-year-old European horse Mr Brooks fractured his cannon bone and fell on top of his jockey, Lester Piggott. Piggott had told fellow European jockey Walter Swinburn before the race that the horse did not warm up well. Mr Brooks had also been reluctant to go in the starting gate before the race. There was so much controversy over the handling of Mr Brooks that the Breeders' Cup implemented rigid pre-race inspections in 1993. The resulting media pressure from the deaths of Go for Wand and Mr Brooks prompted racing industries around the world to make a concerted effort at determining the extent of the problem and the causes.
* Rate statistics are based on occurrences per 1,000 starts.