ITV News: Welfare training "not enough" as Grand National Festival opens with horse death

Ahead of this year's Grand National Festival, the Jockey Club funded enhanced welfare training for stable staff through equine therapy centre Equi-Ed — covering stride analysis, physical examinations and skeletal instruction. While Lawyers for Animals welcomes any effort to improve horse welfare on the ground, the initiative does not address the systemic failures that continue to cost horses their lives.

Gold Dancer died on the opening day of the festival — the 68th horse to die at Aintree since 2000 — after suffering a fatal injury during the William Hill Mildmay Novices' Chase. With a global audience of 600 million and up to £350 million wagered annually, the financial stakes of the Grand National are clear. So too is the cost to the animals involved.

"Last year 192 horses died on British racecourses — somebody has to be held accountable. The best way to look after horses is to remove the British Horseracing Authority from their remit of horse regulating."

— Dene Stansall, Horse Campaign Lead, Lawyers for Animals

Lawyers for Animals is calling for a change in the law so that organisations — not just individuals — can be held accountable under the Animal Welfare Act 2006. The BHA's self-regulatory model has failed to prevent decades of preventable deaths. Training stable staff is a ground-level measure; what is needed is independent oversight and legal accountability at the institutional level.

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