British racing’s new welfare strategy targets lifetime traceability
A five-year plan will lay the groundwork for tracking Thoroughbreds throughout their lives, as World Horse Welfare calls for clearer evidence that horses are enjoying a good life.
British racing has launched a new five-year welfare strategy with a long-term ambition to achieve 100% lifetime traceability for Thoroughbreds bred for racing in Great Britain.
The Horse Welfare Strategy 2027–2031 sets out 20 priorities covering horses’ quality of life, safety, lifetime responsibility and public trust. World Horse Welfare has welcomed the plan, while calling for better ways to measure wellbeing and further research into whip use.
Announced on 10 November at a parliamentary reception in Westminster, the strategy builds on racing’s first industry-wide welfare plan, published in 2020.
Following horses beyond their racing careers
A central aim is to improve visibility of horses before and after their racing careers. The lifetime traceability target is a long-term ambition, with the new strategy establishing the foundations needed to pursue it.
Planned work includes better records of horses’ first move out of racing, wider use of digital vaccination records and improved information sharing between equestrian disciplines.
Baroness Minette Batters, independent chair of the Horse Welfare Board, told the launch that knowing where horses are is essential to taking responsibility for them throughout their lives. She said better traceability could help target welfare interventions and strengthen disease prevention.
The Horse Welfare Board’s strategy also covers veterinary research, the training environment, aftercare and greater transparency about welfare.
Looking beyond race-day safety
The plan broadens racing’s approach to safety by considering how horses’ everyday lives and training may contribute to risk on the racecourse.
Speaking at the launch, Batters said the next step was to develop a fuller understanding of factors away from competition, alongside continuing work on race programming and racecourse preparation. British Horseracing Authority
World Horse Welfare chief executive Roly Owers supported this wider approach, stressing that what happens during the “other 23 hours” has a major influence on horses’ health and welfare.
He said: “Providing all horses bred for racing with a good life must be the key priority. We would especially like to see investment in better measuring whether racehorses are provided with a good life, at all stages.”
Charity calls for welfare to be judged from the horse’s perspective
Owers said knowledge of equine wellbeing had developed since the previous strategy, making it important to use emerging evidence to modernise racehorse management.
“It’s important to put the horse at the centre and consider quality of life not from our point of view, but from the horse’s perspective,” he said.
The charity welcomed the commitment to lifetime responsibility and the resources being directed towards traceability. However, its support came with a call for additional work on the whip.
“We welcome the greater emphasis on transparency and accountability, but would like to see further research on the use of the whip as proposed in the previous strategy,” Owers said.
In its response to the welfare strategy, World Horse Welfare described the plan as realistic and deliverable, although Owers said the charity would like racing to move further and faster.
Aftercare and delivery
Retraining of Racehorses, racing’s official aftercare partner, has published a separate five-year strategy alongside the wider welfare plan. Its work will support horses moving into life beyond racing and contribute to improved traceability.
The British Horseracing Authority says work planned for 2027 is fully scoped and funded, with support from the Racing Foundation and Horserace Betting Levy Board. The strategy’s priorities will be turned into annual project plans with measures of success.