Horse racing generates billions in global revenue but involves significant welfare risks. From training injuries to post-racing abandonment, the welfare of racehorses requires scrutiny beyond race day performance.
Horse racing presents multiple overlapping welfare concerns throughout an animals career. Racing young horses before skeletal maturity increases injury risk. Training regimes involve high-intensity exercise and confinement between work periods that frustrates natural grazing and social behaviour. Whip use causes physical pain confirmed by horse behavioural responses. Fatal injuries on racecourses represent acute welfare failures, while the chronic welfare of horses throughout training careers receives less scrutiny. Post-racing welfare is poorly tracked in most jurisdictions, with a significant proportion of horses entering uncertain or poor welfare situations. The challenge is that the sport generates genuine human enjoyment and economic activity while causing systematic welfare costs.