There were 15 deaths in New Zealand for the year ending 31 July. Photo: 123RF
An animal advocate wants a ban on horse racing saying it causes death and injury to innocent animals.
There were 15 deaths and more than 300 injuries in New Zealand for the year ending 31 July.
Sandra Kyle from the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses told Checkpoint the sport was cruel to horses.
"Just in the way that greyhound racing has been banned because it injures and takes the lives of innocent animals so is the case with horse racing."
Jump racing was five times more lethal than when horses raced on the flat, she said.
Straight tracks did not work for greyhounds and Kyle believed they would not work for horses either.
She did not believe there was a realistic way to make horse racing safer.
"I think if the horse wasn't pushed to go faster and faster and faster therefore inducing lung and nose bleeds and cardiac arrests and tripping and falling and breaking their limbs then that would be fine."
But Kyle said a scenario where there was a slower race which did not use whips would not hold the same level of excitement and interest.
In the New Zealand racing industry there had been eight horse racing deaths over less than three months, she said.
"These were as a result of cardiac arrest and bone breakages and there were actually two on one day."
Kyle acknowledged that most of those in the horse racing industry loved their horses and put a lot of time, effort and money into them.
"But there's cognitive dissonance going on here because every time that a horse lines up at the barrier to race, statistically they're going to get hurt or they're going to get killed."
It was a relatively small percentage of horses that were hurt or killed in races, just under 1 percent, she said.
"But we take the point of view that one horse injured, one horse killed is one too many."
Many horses did not want to race which could be shown by fractious behaviour, she said.
"The industry actually call it bad behaviour, but not on the part of the people pushing the horse into the starter gate but on the part of the horse who's not behaving properly because they probably sense that maybe this won't turn out well for me."
Kyle said the horse racing industry should be wound down and it could start with reducing breeding of horses.
"Horses are bred in higher numbers because not every foal born will be a suitable race horse."
Those involved in the industry could retrain and find jobs elsewhere, she said.
New Zealand's economy should be built on ethical pursuits rather than harming animals, she said.
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