New risk-assessment model for U.S. racehorses in development
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The developers of a risk-assessment model for racehorses in Hong Kong will attempt to build a similar model for U.S. racing by the end of next year, one of the principal developers said on Monday at the Safety and Welfare of the Racehorse Summit at Keeneland.
Dr. Tim Parkin, an epidemiologist at the University of Bristol who has analyzed U.S. injury data for two decades, said he and his partners in the Hong Kong project will begin applying the model to data collected from U.S. racing in October and let the program run for a year. The Hong Kong project was launched in the fall of 2025 after analyzing data for three years.
If the program is successful, Parkin said, “it could be the next big step in identifying those horses at greatest risk” for injury in North America.
U.S. racing interests have devoted significant resources to identifying risk factors for horses since the 2008 launch of the Equine Injury Database, and those efforts have intensified in the past four years as the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority began applying more resources and technological tools to the analysis.
The identification of risk factors is considered paramount to efforts to reduce catastrophic injuries. Worldwide, deaths of horses have become more and more problematic as cultures increasingly express greater concern for animal-welfare issues, most acutely in industries in which animals are used for entertainment.
Parkin said the Hong Kong model could validate the industry’s previous work at identifying risk factors while also providing a new set of markers to determine which horses should draw increased scrutiny prior to racing or training.
An analysis of the Hong Kong program’s results showed that horses that were placed among the highest risk cohort were found to be 13 times more likely to turn in a “unacceptable performance” than the lowest risk cohort, Parkin said, and 12 times more likely to be lame post-race, validating the program’s predictive capabilities. (An “unacceptable performance” was defined as an instance in which the horse ran well below its usual form, Parkin said after his presentation.)
As the primary epidemiologist working on the Equine Injury Database since its inception, Parkin is well-known in U.S. racing circles, and he’s familiar with the issues facing racing worldwide.
“We always had the aspiration that the work in Hong Kong would not only benefit Hong Kong but work as a model for North America,” Parkin said.
The Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation is providing a grant to fund the development of the model.
In a separate part of his presentation, Parkin said that the adoption of rules and policies arising out of the identification of early risk factors in the Equine Injury Database analysis has survived the test of time. He singled out the adoption of “void-claim policies” allowing owners to invalidate claims of horses that suffer injuries in their races and the additional scrutiny by regulatory veterinarians of horses who have been placed on the vets’ list long after they have been removed from it.
According to Parkin, horses running in claiming races in jurisdictions with a void-claim rule remain 32 percent less likely to suffer an injury than those in jurisdictions without the rule, while data continues to show that horses who have spent time on the vets’ list remain 40 to 50 percent more likely to suffer an injury than a horse who has never been on the list.
The data “clearly demonstrates the value of regulatory responses,” Parkin said.
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