The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) has today published a report on its Equine Injury in Irish Racing Reduction (EIIRRR) Programme. This report reaffirms the IHRB’s relentless focus on the safety and welfare of our equine and human participants and can be read in full here

Key findings of this report include:

• The IHRB has taken proactive, evidence-based measures to protect horse and rider safety by increasing veterinary focus on horses which are at increased risk of injury. From November 2023 to August 2024, over one-third of all runners in Ireland were examined pre-race. As part of the EIIRRR programme, 2,482 additional horses were subject to enhanced inspection. This constitutes over a third of all the horses examined pre-race during this period.
• Further improvements are underway and incoming, including a fatality review process, completion of pre-race inspection areas on all tracks, pre-race medical record submissions, and making information about reducing risk available to trainers.

The purpose of the EIIRRR programme is to improve, where possible, the safety of horses and riders racing in Ireland by reducing injury risk. It achieves this through analysis of Irish horseracing equine fatality data, evaluation of worldwide evidence of injury risk mitigation strategies, and intervention where possible using the knowledge gained from both.

Research undertaken as part of this project identified five categories of horse at increased risk of fatal injury, as follows, which are now routinely examined pre-race:

• Horses aged over seven in Flat races and aged over 10 in National Hunt races
• Any horse aged over seven years making their racecourse debut
• Any horse that fell on its previous start
• Any horse which has run within the last seven days, and
• Any horse that has not had a race start in the previous 365 days.

Dr Lynn Hillyer, IHRB Chief Veterinary Officer said: “The IHRB is committed to a relentless focus on the safety of our participants - human and equine - and we consider this to be a core pillar of our work as a regulator. We’re encouraged by the findings of this report and look forward to further improvements in this area as more of our EIIRRR measures and initiatives come into effect.

“I’d like to thank all those whose expertise has helped us prepare this report and deliver these results. This research was made possible by veterinary and horseracing experts from across our industry, including the EIIRRR Project Board, IHRB and HRI management, and our IHRB officials on the ground on a daily basis.”