Horse racing creates significant welfare concerns through track fatalities, performance-enhancing medication practices, and the fate of horses after their racing careers end.
Horse racing welfare encompasses the entire life course from training through retirement. Track fatalities are the most visible welfare concern — catastrophic fractures on race day cause immediate severe suffering and death. Less visible but more numerous are the chronic musculoskeletal problems that accumulate over training and competition careers. Medication practices that mask pain allow injured horses to compete, increasing injury risk. Whip use causes pain and distress. Post-career welfare depends on the availability of retraining and rehoming programs that prevent the most able and athletic horses from entering the slaughter pipeline when their racing value declines.