Give our animals life beyond track
HANDS up those who love their horses!
Raise that with any horse owner and the arms will stand to attention as quick as a flash.
Ask anyone who has or has had a share in a racehorse whether they care about the animal and they will deliver the same reply with monotonous regularity.
They love them as athletes and the majority develop personal relationships with these incredible animals.
Finding a solution to how we can ensure these remarkable creatures are guaranteed a decent departure from this world has resulted in deep discussions at the tables of every governing body in the country.
This writer’s view on how best to tackle the issue is basic but makes sense.
As people we rely on superannuation to help see us through our twilight years and a portion of that is subsidised by our employers and the Federal Government.
Maybe what all racing animals need is a retirement fund that should be established at birth.
Breeders could be required to kick the program off by paying a fee at the registration stage of the animal and that would trigger the establishment of an equine Retirement Benefit Fund (RBF) number that would be assigned to an account with the appropriate code’s controlling body.
The fees could be proportionate to the codes with registration of a thoroughbred or standardbred to carry a $500 fee at birth and $100 for greyhounds.
Greyhound litters can be as high as 12 and the cost of looking after the wellbeing and subsequent funeral arrangements of a dog is far less than that of a horse.
Once a racehorse reaches the yearling sale ring the company responsible for running the sale could insist on one per cent of the sale-price being diverted to the horse’s RBF account.
That way the selling agent will have contributed to the animal’s welfare plan as will have the horse’s new owners, while the breeder should be pay a smaller percentage of the sale price as they will already have paid to kickstart the RBF. A horse that sells for $50,000 will have another $500 deposited into its retirement fund while those that sell for $1 million will be the beneficiary of $10,000 being deposited into the account.
Owners would be required to contribute each year to the horse’s RBF but that could be done by way of trainer’s adding an extra $1 a day to the training fee and the trainer could subsequently deposit that amount into the horse’s RBF each month.
A trainer’s contribution could be via a small percentage of any prizemoney earned from the horse’s performance.
Might sound like a lot of extra paperwork but it would be worth it in the end.
Racehorses are moved on to a wide range of lifestyles after racing but wherever they go, the new owners should have a responsibility to care for the horse just as it was when in the racing system.
Should any urgent veterinary treatment be required while with the owner at that time, then some or all of these costs could be defrayed by applying for access to the horse’s RBF. The equine RBF makes sense and should it or something similar be adopted then it would more than likely need to be the responsibility of the national controlling body of each code to manage such funds. These are the views of this writer and they have been delivered as an attempt to help as we all work towards a better end outcome for our racing animals.