Australia | Horse Racing Free Tips

New Australian Regulations To Protect Thoroughbreds Effective May 1

Racing Australia will begin enforcing its new traceability rules on May 1. Created in an effort to ensure Thoroughbred health and welfare by tracing racehorses throughout their lives, officials hope the rules will result in positive equine welfare outcomes.

The new rules will require regular and detailed reporting of a horse's status and movements, providing transparency about where Australian Thoroughbreds are and what they are doing. The rules apply to breeding horses, unnamed horses not registered to race, named and registered racehorses and retired racehorses. Racing Australia must be made aware of a horse's change of ownership, location change, retirement from breeding or racing, and a status update must be provided if the horse hasn't raced for six months. Death of a horse is also reportable. Each of these events must be reported to Racing Australia within a specific timeframe.

The new regulations also allow for stewards to enter a property to assess a horse's health and welfare; stewards are permitted to bring along anyone necessary to assist in the examinations. Anyone found to be in violation of these new rules is subject to restrictions of their ability to race or breed, and the withholding of earnings.

Though current reporting obligations end when a horse is retired from racing, sending a horse directly to slaughter or sending it to a sale where it might be sold to slaughter is prohibited. A potential joint effort between the racing industry and the government has been proposed to ensure retired racehorses stay safe throughout their lifetime, even after they leave the jurisdiction of Racing Australia.

Melbourne Cup: Anthony Van Dyck Tragedy Leads To New CT Scan Requirement, Other Safety Benchmarks

Racing Victoria (RV), together with the Victoria Racing Club (VRC), have announced the industry's plan to set a new global safety benchmark for horses competing in the Spring Racing Carnival. The new safety measures, to be introduced this year, follow an extensive review into the rate of injuries sustained by international horses during the Spring Racing Carnival over the past decade, with a primary focus on Australia's greatest race, the Melbourne Cup.

The process involved the review group covering four key areas: the higher rate of injuries among visiting and imported horses over the past decade; pre- and post-travel veterinary and diagnostic requirements; training facilities both internationally and upon arrival in Melbourne; and the conditions of the Melbourne Cup.

The review group also considered a fatality report compiled by RV following the injury and subsequent euthanasia of Aidan O'Brien trainee Anthony Van Dyck in the 2020 Melbourne Cup.

The report details that, following his arrival in Australia, Anthony Van Dyck's private veterinarian diagnosed Proximal Suspensory Desmitis (PSD) in all four limbs, a condition that is common in athletic horses and is considered low risk for serious injury. The diagnostic procedures used by the stable's private veterinarian included nerve blocks, a highly common practice used by veterinarians to temporarily desensitize localized areas when examining the soundness of equine athletes.

The diagnosis of PSD was consistent with the findings of Anthony Van Dyck's post mortem and is considered unrelated to the fatal fractures sustained by the horse in the Melbourne Cup. Having reasonably accepted the diagnosis of PSD and in the absence of other clinical signs, further diagnostic examination was not sought by the stable or RV.

The fatality report found that, whilst current veterinary processes were followed, had mandatory precautionary diagnostic imaging been in place, it may have identified the potential for Anthony Van Dyck to incur a more serious racing injury.

The review group ultimately determined that there are multiple contributing factors to injuries in horses, particularly among international horses travelling to Australia, and thus a combination of recommendations, each contributing to reduce the risk of injury, was required.

The headline initiatives being implemented with the aim of reducing injuries among international horses during the Spring Racing Carnival and among all horses competing in the Melbourne Cup are as follows:

Pre-Travel

An enhanced pre-travel veterinary examination process will ensure an unprecedented level of scrutiny on horses wishing to travel with additional compulsory diagnostic imaging and examinations to be conducted;
All international horses wishing to enter WIHC must undergo full body scintigraphy and CT/MRI of their distal limbs at the expense of their connections two to six weeks prior to entering pre-export quarantine;
Horses that have had a previous major fracture or orthopaedic surgery will be excluded from travelling and entering WIHC regardless of their current health and soundness; and
An RV appointed veterinarian will conduct a pre-travel veterinary examination in pre-export quarantine within a week of travelling to Australia to ensure the ongoing suitability of horses to travel.

Post-Arrival in Australia

All international horses that arrive at WIHC must also undergo a CT scan of their distal limbs prior to each start in Victoria during the Spring Racing Carnival before being permitted to compete, with the costs to be met by RV;
Dedicated RV appointed veterinary staff will provide and/or oversee veterinary clinical services for international horses at WIHC instead of stables appointing their own private veterinarians; and
Enhanced oversight will include new trackwork monitoring processes and systems along with the world-first introduction of cortisol analysis to monitor stress levels in international horses based at WIHC.

Werribee International Horse Centre

The WIHC will be retained as the industry's quarantine facility and international training center with further enhancements to be made to the two training tracks and veterinary examination facilities;
The depth of the profile of the sand-fibre track will be increased and track preparation modified to increase the depth and frequency of harrowing, while the crossing will be upgraded on the turf track;
The number of international horses permitted to enter the WIHC for the Spring Racing Carnival will be capped at 24 – down from an uncapped peak of 42 in 2018; and
Imported international horses ('one-way tickets'), whilst in training, will be required to remain at the WIHC until at least the conclusion of Melbourne Cup week before being permitted to transfer to different training facilities.

Melbourne Cup

In what is believed to be a world-first initiative, all horses – international and local – must undergo a CT scan of their distal limbs before being permitted to compete in the Melbourne Cup, with the costs to be met by RV;
That diagnostic imaging must be performed after the date of the Caulfield Cup and prior to Melbourne Cup final acceptances, with local horses permitted to start between their imaging and the Melbourne Cup;
These scans will be reviewed by a panel of three RV-appointed international experts in equine surgery and veterinary diagnostic imaging to determine the horse's suitability to race;
International horses that travel to Australia via the WIHC will be permitted to have a maximum of one start only in Australia prior to contesting the Melbourne Cup; and
An additional pre-race veterinary inspection of all starters will be conducted by a panel of RV veterinarians on the day prior to the Melbourne Cup, in addition to that already conducted on the Thursday/Friday prior to the race.

To facilitate the implementation of the plan, RV, the VRC and the Melbourne Racing Club (MRC) have today also announced that nominations for the 2021 Melbourne Cup and 2021 Caulfield Cup will be brought forward to Aug. 3 to allow sufficient time for extensive veterinary examinations of international entries. The final race conditions of the 2021 Melbourne Cup will be published in June.

Additional information about the new initiatives is available here.

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Australia: Jockey Banned Eight Years For Betting On Himself

A jockey who changed his name by deed poll and used it to operate a betting account while still riding under his old name has been disqualified for a total of eight years.

Terry Treichel rode over 1,200 winners across New South Wales and Queensland before relocating to Northern Territory.

But when Thoroughbred Racing Northern Territory (TRNT) stewards began investigating allegations of betting activity at Alice Springs they discovered Treichel had changed his name to Daniel Jack Smith.

The 41-year-old Smith, formerly Treichel, pleaded guilty to all 32 charges issued against him while a licensed jockey between July 2019 and December 2020.

These included falsely declaring in his licence application that his name was Terry Treichel when he had changed his identity to Smith.

He committed 27 breaches of betting rules, 16 relating to bets on his own mounts and 11 on other runners in races he was involved in. He placed approximately 174 bets on races he has not riding in through various betting accounts. There was no evidence of any corruption in the races the jockey bet and rode in.

As one of the accounts was opened in 2015, Smith could be investigated by Racing NSW and Queensland as he was licensed by both jurisdictions.

The inquiry notice said: “This is a unique set of circumstances not seen before in Australian racing. The coveting of a change of identity and subsequent volume of betting whilst licensed as a jockey is unprecedented.”

Smith has the right to appeal.

This story was originally published by Horse Racing Planet and is reprinted here with permission.

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New Strain Of Hendra Virus Discovered In Australia

Australian researchers have determined a new strain of Hendra virus was responsible for the unexplained death of a horse in 2015. Hendra virus has a mortality rate of nearly 80 percent in horses. It's also lethal to humans, with a 60 percent mortality rate. Since its discovery in 1994, Hendra virus has killed over 100 horses and four humans in Australia.

The new strain of Hendra virus had not been seen in routine equine biosecurity testing, but has been detected in grey-headed flying fox samples from 2013. The samples collected in Adelaide share 99 percent of their sequence identity with the virus infecting the 2015 horse sample.

Prior to this discovery, Hendra virus was only known to occur in areas where black flying foxes and spectacled flying foxes live. The research team has developed diagnostic lab techniques to identify the new strain. They expect the currently available Hendra virus vaccine will be effective against the newly discovered strain.

The research team, led by Dr. Peter Reid, suggests that unwell horses living in areas where flying foxes are present should be treated with the same precautions as horses that have had a positive Hendra diagnosis, even if their initial Hendra test comes back negative.

The scientists suggest that preventative measures to curtail the spread of Hendra virus be put in place, including vaccination, good hygiene, the use of personal protective equipment and putting biosecurity measures in place.