Parliamentary Committees

Select Committee on Jumps Racing

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (17:33): I move:

That the report of the committee be noted.

Our deliberations as a committee about jumps racing in South Australia were extraordinarily thorough, robust, probing and thoughtful. Our work, I believe, left no stone unturned. Our committee received hundreds and hundreds of submissions, and it was excellent to receive so much input from such a deeply passionate group of people, a group that put us on notice very early about the importance of our deliberations.

I became part of this committee very much with an open mind about the future of jumps racing and, rightly, was committed to and did listen very, very carefully to the many animal welfare organisations, regional racing clubs, owners, trainers, jockeys, former jockeys, representative bodies and others we heard from and met with. Many of those we spoke with had a lifelong connection to the sport or with efforts to improve rider and horse welfare within it, and every single one of them was passionate about their views and generous in providing us with their wealth of information and their connection with the sport or with animal welfare around it over decades.

It was particularly insightful to visit both Oakbank and Mount Gambier and for other members of the committee to visit Warrnambool as part of our deliberations, where we inspected stables, the construction and deconstruction of the jumps, the courses, the horses themselves, and spoke with stewards and riders who were just about to start a jumps race and, in some cases, just as they finished a race and also where we spoke with local businesses who benefit from engaging with these regional races.

What was absolutely common in both the animal welfare groups and the supporters of jumps racing was that those with an interest, whatever their feelings and thoughts about the future of the sport, cared deeply about the welfare of the horses involved. I place on record my sincere thanks to the many South Australians and others who took the time to communicate with us in writing and in person. Their voices are integral to the content of this report.

The committee found that jumps racing in South Australia should not be banned; however, it did find that its continuation should be absolutely conditional on the industry progressing significant improvements in safety, reporting, data collection, communication and transparency over the next three years. The report's recommendations focus on this and provide much detail about the improvements that must be made and communicated if the industry is to be able to sustain itself and continue into the future with support from the South Australian community.

As the introduction to our report sets out, our findings are presented in two sections: recommendations and rationale and public submissions which summarise the key arguments presented to the committee through our numerous interactions and also through our consideration of research. Our recommendations are grouped under four subject headings that reflect the critical areas of concern that must be addressed for jumps racing in South Australia to continue. These four headings are: future direction; research and data collection; safety, planning and risk mitigation; and safeguarding of animal welfare.

Our committee was of course concerned by the risks presented to both horses and riders in jumps racing. However, it was also clear to our committee that several safety measures had in fact been implemented in recent years. What was clear also, though, was that communication about these improvements had not been as robust as it could have been. Our committee wants to see the industry be as safe as it possibly can be. We want it to talk about its safety measures, and our recommendations are focused on the industry achieving best practice in all areas associated with it, with a stringent focus on improvement in the safety of the sport for both horses and riders.

We could not have more carefully considered the impact a ban would have on the South Australian communities most affected by such a ban, the welfare of the horses and the ethical concerns of those who oppose jumps racing. Jumps racing has been a part of our South Australian history since 1876. Generations of South Australians have grown up attending the Oakbank Easter Carnival, and the steeplechase races at this carnival are part of our collective history, with recognition of these races by many supporters and otherwise.

Our committee is clear that jumps racing in South Australian rural communities does provide a financial and visitor boost to those communities, with the industry supporting and sustaining a small but dedicated group of owners and trainers and, in turn, jockeys, strippers, farriers, veterinarians, equipment and feed suppliers and many others who count on this industry to make a living. We have heard from those with family connections to jumps racing that go back more than a century and others who have spent their own lives working in this industry.

As I said, we saw that the jumps racing community loves its sport and treasures the horses involved in it. Alongside this, there is, however, a risk of injury and fatality. We received many submissions with absolutely legitimate concerns about the safety of jumps horses. It was clear from these submissions that there is considerable public sentiment for an improved duty of care to the animals involved. Our committee agreed that we must never tolerate cruelty and that, rightly, needless or explicit cruelty is illegal and enforceable under the Animal Welfare Act 1985.

In making a significant number of recommendations, we reflected on that tenet and the fact that community attitudes and values rightly require the industry to implement further safety measures and show greater transparency and accountability. If the traditions of the past are to continue into the 21^st century, adequate protections and first-class whole-of-life animal welfare and safety standards must be put in place and must be relentlessly spoken about, and information about those standards and improvements must be publicly available so that they can be discussed and interrogated whenever and wherever necessary.

As I mentioned, safety measures implemented since 2010 have had an impact, with a reduction in fatalities in recent years. However, there is still so much more to do and so many improvements to be made. Our committee has found data and research on aspects of jumps racing to be very limited. As we know, when considering many issues which elicit concern from our communities and which speak to what we value as a South Australian community, data, research and other forms of evidence are integral to informed public debate and to progress social change.

In handing down our recommendations, we are clearly calling on the industry to satisfy our South Australian community, through a number of improvements, that it is deeply committed to reducing risk and achieving best practice in all aspects of this sport. The committee is confident that our recommendations send a strong message to the industry, call it to account and, most importantly, give us the best possible chance of enhancing the safety of this sport in South Australia.

I again thank all who took time to provide submissions and present evidence to the committee. Their wisdom and passion deepened our discussions and contributed to what we believe to be a balanced response to an extraordinarily complex issue. I also, very importantly, thank my fellow committee members for their efforts and commitment to getting to this point. This committee was a remarkably cohesive one, and I am thankful to each committee member. I thank the Hon. Michael Atkinson, Mr Troy Bell, Mr Eddie Hughes and Dr Duncan McFetridge for their willingness to work so well and so thoroughly together.

Very importantly, thank you also to the very hardworking support staff, who went on quite a journey with us—Ms Rachel Stone, Mr Shannon Riggs and Ms Veronika Petroff—for their commitment to this inquiry and their support of committee members; it is greatly appreciated. Their professionalism and endurance are absolutely to be commended.

Sitting extended beyond 18:00 on motion of Hon. S.E. Close.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (17:42): It was my pleasure to be on the select committee to inquire into the future of jumps racing in South Australia. Those members who were here in 2003, when I introduced some legislation to ban tail docking in dogs, will remember the huge input every member in this place received both for and against that issue. Each and every one of us in this place would be aware that our constituents have animal welfare at the top of their thoughts.

As a veterinary surgeon, I have been involved with the issues of animal welfare for many years. I have worked in racehorse practice and in sports horse practice, with show jumping and eventing, so I have experienced the very highs and the very lows of these industries, yet animal welfare has always been at the top of the consideration of not only me as a veterinary surgeon but also of the owners and associates of the horses involved. I went on this committee to look at this issue. It is a very difficult issue to embrace for some people, but others who are involved in the industry absolutely love it—they live for it in some cases.

It is a very emotive issue, as I say, like other areas of animal welfare, and we received volumes of submissions—over 1,800 submissions, I think. The committee met 18 times and we travelled to Victoria and country South Australia and to Oakbank, obviously, to look at and talk to people associated with jumps racing. I am convinced that we have a complete picture of the current situation in South Australia and also of what is happening in Victoria. We also received a lot of information about what is happening overseas. We were able to come to a unanimous conclusion that jumps racing in South Australia should not be banned. That said, there are a number of areas where we need to make sure that openness and transparency associated with jumps racing are going to be to the world's best standard.

I am very pleased to see that, amongst the 28 recommendations we have made, there are a number of recommendations to the industry to lift their game and open themselves up to more scrutiny, because everybody will be watching. This is not the end of the penny section. Although we have said that the parliament should not revisit this for three years, we will be watching what is going on very carefully, as will the rest of the population of South Australia.

The members of the committee worked exceptionally well together, and I was very pleased to be on that committee. There was no politics; it was all about the issue. Certainly our staff who came with us did a fabulous job of not only herding us but also making sure that we were shown everything we needed to be shown on our various visits.

To sum up, from my point of view as a veterinary surgeon, I have seen firsthand the associated risks that are in horse sport. Equine Veterinarians Australia (EVA) in their submission said:

...properly regulated use of horses in jumps racing is a legitimate use of equine athletic ability.

The EVA recognised that:

...training and racing of horses is inevitably associated with some risk of injury and that the minimisation of these risks through attention to training methods, schedules and facilities is an important responsibility of all participants in the industry.

That really sums up where I am coming from and really sums up where the committee ended up. We are very keen to see the industry continue, but we must make sure we maximise animal welfare for the horses involved so that we can all continue to enjoy watching the spectacles of the Oakbank races, the Grand Annual at Warrnambool and also the other races down at Mount Gambier we see each and every year. I think it is a spectacular event. I have ridden over jumps, hurdles and steeples. As a participant in the sport, it was—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: What did you weigh in at?

Dr McFETRIDGE: I was a little bit lighter in those days. I know there is a move to have heavyweight racing now. Perhaps I could get in there. I would need a pretty strong horse, though, to participate. My hunting jacket does not quite fit anymore; it has shrunk a little bit.

The bottom line is that this is a good sport. It is a good industry that we have in South Australia. It employs a lot of people and has a huge economic impact, and we cannot disregard that side of the submissions we received as well. I wholeheartedly support the findings of our committee and stand behind them 100 per cent.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon) (17:47): Racing horses over jumps is I think between 10 and 19 times more likely to result in the death of a hose than racing on the flat. Over the next three years, we must find out what the true multiple is and seek to reduce it or prohibit jumps racing in South Australia.

Although those lobbying to ban jumps racing may be disappointed with this report, they cannot deny that the committee addressed the issues they wanted addressed and difficult issues they might not have expected us to address, such as wastage, the fate of race horses after they have ceased to race, fatalities in track work and trials, and follow-up of non-fatal injuries that are not apparent on race day.

The Boden study, published in the Equine Veterinary Journal, found that from 1989 to 1994 there were 316 horse fatalities on Victorian tracks in flat races and 198 in jumps races. There are many more flat races than jumps races, so the ratios are one horse death for every 2,150 horses that started in a flat race and one horse death for every 115 horses that started in a jumps race. The Boden study found that there were more horse fatalities in steeplechases than hurdles. In steeplechases, the obstacles are 1.15 metres and in hurdles they are one metre.

Racing Victoria has made changes to jumps racing that have reduced fatalities. Horses that are out of contention in the race may be pulled up by their jockeys. This is probably done more than anything else to reduce falls and fatalities. Most falls are at the last three jumps because horses are most fatigued at that point in a race. The new rule is very much against the customary rules of racing, which dictate that a jockey must ride out his mount to give it every chance of winning a placing, but I think the change has worked well.

We had evidence that horses are pack animals and prey animals and that their instinct was to flee predators as a group. As the field comes to the last jump, we might have, say, two leaders who are going to fight out the race and one former leader who has just been overtaken by, say, half a length. The three horses, as pack animals, will take off as one at the last jump but the weakening former leader, being half a length back, may strike the obstacle, having taken off a tad too early. I saw this happen to Marlo Man at the new Pakenham track at Tynong.

I know that the pack is part of the romance of steeplechasing, but it is also the cause of most of the falls. If horses were to race in pairs and the field of, say, 12 were to be released in stages as six pairs, the winning and finishing order to be determined on times, falls would be much reduced—but whether punters would put their hard-earned on it I rather doubt.

Aficionados of jumps racing will tell you that horses love to jump and that after losing a rider a horse will jump with the field to the end. In the past 12 months, I have attended jumps racing meetings at Oakbank (three), Hamilton, Sandown (three), Gawler (two), Warnambool (three), Mount Gambier, Casterton, Pakenham and Murray Bridge. My observation is that a horse that has lost its rider will stay with the pack for a while, sometimes jumping the hurdles and sometimes skirting them, but it will eventually lose interest in jumping. Sea King in the Crisp Steeplechase at Sandown in August was an example as, riderless, he stuck with his stablemate Zed Em, the leader for most of the race, after losing his hoop, Steve Pateman, early in the race.

More than 10 years ago, in an attempt to reduce falls Racing Victoria made jumps out of bright yellow synthetic material which resembled upright straw and which gave way down to a much lower level. The outcome was that horses learnt that the yellow synthetic threads were forgiving, and they increasingly strode through them instead of jumping them. Jockeys rode hurdle races faster as a result, with the eventual result that the horses tripped on the hard, obscure foundation. Racing Victoria then introduced the current obstacles, which resemble upright, dark brown straw but which are less forgiving the further down the hurdle one tries, giving horse and jockey the message that it is easier to jump it than try to stride through it.

The jumps are preceded by horizontal white padding covering the breadth of the jump and installed at an angle. The white padding has a broad, black, horizontal stripe on it which signals to horse and jockey that a jump is coming up, visible even on a misty day at Warrnambool. It is a vast improvement on the fallen log or the brick walls that jumpers used to have to negotiate. White wings have been added to either side of the jumps to make it clear to horse and rider where the jumps are, and which fall to pieces harmlessly upon being struck.

The location of jumps can be tricky. For instance, at Sandown in Melbourne the field is expected to come to the outside of the straight to jump, and at Warrnambool fields are expected to reverse direction. The use of live hedges as obstacles has worked well at Casterton and Oakbank because of less resistance.

Jumps racing is now politically controversial and argued ruthlessly and sometimes untruthfully. I was introduced to a leading trainer at Warrnambool who told me, 'Don't give in. These horses would go to the knackery if we didn't have jumps racing.' It is tolerably clear that the great majority of jumps racing horses do not go to the knackery or abattoir upon retiring from jumps racing, though some do. Indeed, there is evidence that their training for jumps racing makes them better prospects for show jumping, cross country, three-day eventing and recreational riding than sprinters. Moreover, there is strong evidence that most jumps racing careers are only for a season, so if it is to be the knackery or the abattoir, it is only a short postponement.

On the other side, there is the anthropomorphising of horses, publishing photographs of horses that purport to show them expressing human emotions such as crying and straightforwardly mendacious reporting by Fairfax newspapers to titillate its left Liberal readership. But the house must be clear on one thing: banning jumps racing will not satisfy the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses, banjumpsracing.com and Animal Liberation which are for all intents and purposes wholly owned subsidiaries of the Australian Greens political party.

Despite what they say in public, what they say amongst themselves is quite different, and I refer you to the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses' Facebook site. Nothing short of closing down horseracing will satisfy them, including the running of the Melbourne Cup, especially the running of the Melbourne Cup. It is not a question of setting aside a proportion of gambling revenue to try to have all horses live out a 27-year lifespan in a paddock. It is not a matter of changing the rules of racing to remove any stress on horses.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: No, they don't spend 27 years in the paddock. Obviously, they race for a period.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The paddock of Croydon.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do you need my protection, member for Croydon?

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: No, I have—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: She is already on one warning.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: As long as you say I am not a fat and shiny old horse wandering around my agistment paddock.

Dr McFetridge interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Shocking! The member for Morphett interjects that I am a gelding.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: How does he know that?

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Well, he is a vet. He knows these things.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: I have been interrupted in a very important momentum, and that is it is a ban they want and, although they concede that public opinion in Australian politics is not yet ready for that, that is where they are all heading. It is not that any of this is new. Cromwell's commonwealth confiscated racehorses. English historian Thomas Macaulay remarked, 'The puritans were concerned less with the pain of the animal than with the pleasure of the spectator.'

If the Animal Liberation activists get their way through the electoral efforts of the Australian Greens, the thoroughbred and standardbred breeds of horse will become exotic heirlooms and a memory. I do not think those involved in the racing industry have any idea of the peril they face. One witness before the committee, a jockey I think, said that racing employs some people, especially in the countryside, who might struggle to get a job anywhere else in the modern economy but who love the horses, stable life, the early starts and working with one's hands. It is at this class of people, whom the Australian Greens find politically intractable, that the Greens policy is targeted, whether it be horseracing, livestock farming, dairying, forestry or fishing.

Horseracing is not as popular as when as I was a child in the 1960s. It does not have the hold in our culture it once did. I have passed on an interest in it to only one of my four children. If jumps racing does not reduce injuries and fatalities in the next three years, it will be prohibited by our parliament and only a few people will lament it. But the SAJC need not think that by cutting jumps racing adrift it will no longer be the prey of the Australian Greens. The curtain may fall on Australia's long horseracing culture much quicker than its devotees—and I am one—expect.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (17:59): I spoke at length about our committee's unanimous position in relation to this inquiry. I conclude by thanking the members for Morphett and Croydon for their very insightful reflections on our deliberations and on our report. I again place on record my thanks to all the committee members. It really was an extraordinarily cohesive and hardworking committee. I again place on record my thanks to the staff and our research officer, who put so much time and effort into getting us to this point.

Motion carried.