For as long as I can remember – and admittedly it is not as long as some – there has been a continual question over the soundness of the Thoroughbred racehorse. While, in recent history, the death of Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby caused the North American industry to, at least for a moment, to confront the issue, it is one that in reality has been present, if not always front and center, for a far longer period of time. In recent years there has been a significant push f

Yet another study, this one on 160,000 racehorses over a 10 year period in Australia, has refuted the claim that racing two-year-olds is detrimental to their careers. In fact, the opposite is true, those that race at two have longer careers than those that don't. The study was completed by Brandon Veile, Claire Wade and Natasha Hamilton from Sydney University with data supplied by the official Australian race database RISA. The study can be found here. The key finding is that

In recent months Brandon Velie, a PhD student at Sydney University has published three very interesting population studies on horses in Australia and Hong Kong in the Equine Veterinary Journal. Profiling the careers of Thoroughbred horses racing in Hong Kong between 2000 and 2010 The association of age at first start with career length in the Australian Thoroughbred racehorse population Profiling the careers of Thoroughbred horses racing in Australia between 2000 and 2010 Bra