An anomaly identified in the injury rate among young Thoroughbreds, seemingly linked to Covid-related disruptions, highlights the importance of racehorses following suitable training schedules, especially early in their careers, say researchers.

Racehorse training and racing schedules in many parts of the United States and Canada were interrupted or otherwise reduced during the first three to six months of 2020, Euan Bennet and Tim Parkin noted in the journal Animals.

This was an indirect consequence of measures taken to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus.

“The outcome of this situation was that a natural experiment occurred,” the pair wrote.

In early 2020, two-year-old Thoroughbreds preparing to begin their racing careers had both their intensive training and the start of their careers delayed.

Older groups of horses aged three and above also experienced an interruption to their usual training programs.

Bennet and Parkin examined potential associations between the disruption to training and fatal musculoskeletal injuries using data from the Equine Injury Database — a census-level report of Thoroughbred flat racing in the United States and Canada collected by The Jockey Club.

The Jockey Club

The initial data analysis from the 14^th year of reporting to the Equine Injury Database (EID) shows a decrease in the rate of fatal injury in 2022 (1.25 fatalities per 1,000 starts) compared to 2021 (1.39 fatalities per 1,000 starts). This is the fourth consecutive year that the rate has decreased, and it is the third consecutive year in which the rate has been below 1.5 fatalities per 1,000 starts. It is the first time ever that the rate has been below 1.3 fatalities per 1,000 starts.
 
Analysis provided by Professor Tim Parkin (University of Bristol), who has consulted on the EID since its inception, and by Dr. Euan Bennet (University of Glasgow), also shows historic low rates of fatality on each surface type, for 3-year-old horses, and for race distances longer than 8 furlongs.
 
“The data shows that since 2009, the risk of fatal injury during racing has declined by 37.5%, which is statistically significant,” Parkin said. “The overall downward trends are testament to the benefits of an evidence-based approach to safety, which is only possible thanks to the EID.”  

Thoroughbred Racing – The 2022 figure of 1.25 fatalities per 1,000 starts is record low since tracks began reporting to the EID en masse in 2009.

USA: Initial data analysis from the 14th year of reporting to the Equine Injury Database (EID) shows a decrease in the rate of fatal injury in 2022 (1.25 fatalities per 1,000 starts) compared to 2021 (1.39 fatalities per 1,000 starts).

This is the fourth consecutive year that the rate has decreased, and it is the third consecutive year in which the rate has been below 1.5 fatalities per 1,000 starts. It is the first time ever that the rate has been below 1.3 fatalities per 1,000 starts.

Analysis provided by Professor Tim Parkin (University of Bristol), who has consulted on the EID since its inception, and Dr. Euan Bennet (University of Glasgow), also shows historic low rates of fatality on each surface type, for three-year-old horses, and for race distances longer than eight furlongs.

“The data shows that since 2009, the risk of fatal injury during racing has declined by 37.5%, which is statistically significant,” Parkin said. “The overall downward trends are testament to the benefits of an evidence-based approach to safety, which is only possible thanks to the EID.”

horsetalk.co.nz – Study explored risk factors for sudden death among racehorses in North America.

American Thoroughbred racehorses given furosemide on race day were at 62% increased odds of sudden death compared to those not racing on the medication, researchers report.

The study, led by the University of Glasgow and published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medicine Association, also found multiple other risk factors associated with sudden death, related to the circumstances of the race and the individual histories of the horses.

Researchers Euan Bennet and Tim Parkin based their findings on data extracted from the Equine Injury Database, which holds detailed records of 92.2% of all official race starts made in the United States and Canada during the study period, from 2009 to 2021.

Their analysis involved 4,198,073 race starts made by 284,387 Thoroughbred horses at 144 North American racetracks.

Paulick Report

A new study of data from the Equine Injury Database has revealed that horses medicated with furosemide (Lasix) on race day were at 62 percent increased odds of sudden death compared to horses that were not racing on furosemide.

Funded by the Grayson Jockey Club Foundation, the study was published by Dr. Euan Bennet and Dr. Tim Parkin on Oct. 20, 2022, in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. It examined the 4,198,073 race starts made by 284,387 Thoroughbred horses at 144 racetracks in the United States and Canada between 2009 and 2021; those numbers represent 92.2 percent of all official race starts during that period.

Of those nearly 4.2 million starts, 536 resulted in a horse’s sudden death, an incidence rate of 0.13/1,000 starts. Sudden death was defined as any horse that was recorded as a fatality within three days of racing, along with one or more of the following fatal injury descriptions or (presumptive) diagnosis, as provided by each participating track to the EID: (1) sudden death (recorded as “SUD” in the EID), (2) pulmonary hemorrhage, (3) exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH), (4) postexertional distress/heatstroke (PED), and (5) cardiac arrhythmia.