The Horse.com reports that Fatal Thoroughbred Racehorse Injuries Declined by 14% in 2015. The stats that underpin this finding are collected in the Equine Injury Database, managed by the Jockey Club. I found the Jockey Club report as well. They have a chart depicting the fatality trends (see chart below for fatality rates per 1,000 starts.
If you're a real data wonk, take a look at the breakdowns by age, track type, and race length. Older horses, horses running on dirt, and horses running short races (less than six furlongs).
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Hummm, when the stats are reported as 1.61 deaths per 1000 starts that does not sound nearly as bad as the 484 horses who died in 299121 starts in 2015. If you check the charts, 790 horses died in 2009, 727 in 2010, 713 in 2011, 709 in 2012, 643 in 2013, 583 in 2014. The number of starts have declined steadily over the 8 year period also from 395897 in 2009 to 2999121 in 2015. My personal opinion is that 1.6 horses die from fatal injuries every 1000 starts is still to high. Can you imagine if we said 1.6 horses were going to die every 1000 dressage classes?
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