Wastage – not the packaging you throw away when you get home from shopping

Wastage in thoroughbred terms designates those horses bred, that don’t make it to the racetrack, or that don’t stay within the industry.

So ‘Wastage’ refers to what should be valued; live, sentient beings. Horses. Non racing.

Please note some figures are horse numbers discarded PRE racing, some are POST racing. Whichever way – too many AND no accountability

For some depressing reads, Google ‘wastage in australian racehorses’

If you wish to be selective, choose sites run by people associated with racing.

https://tajodds.com/f/equine-racing-wastage-figures-2026

Tajodds is run solely by race analyst Gordon Ross.

>>>the report estimates that 8,500–10,500 racing horses are slaughtered or euthanised annually<<<

Or Independents

https://www.abc.net.au/.../racehorses-sent.../11611688

horse related

https://thehorse.com › australian-racehorse-wastage-eval...

More than one-third of racehorses leave the industry every year due to factors including injury and poor performance, a phenomenon known as “wastage

Above comments / postracing

It appears that there is no official record of ANY of these numbers, nor any accurate means of researching numbers. A lot of numbers that were available didn’t add up – ie percentages not equalling 100, and different sites quoting different figures.

What I found disturbing (apart from the discrepancies and the volume of course) was the apparent offhand comments by a lot of people in the industry, especially with reference to the number of deaths included in the ‘wastage’ figures. And these referenced deaths are not the deaths that happen at the race meetings – currently 1 death every 2.2days. They are over and above that.

Some figures and some of those comments below >>including some of our comments <<

AI answer for What percentage of foals born actually race

(so wastage PRE racing)

Data from major racing jurisdictions shows the following breakdown:

• Australia:

o Around 66% of foals enter training.

o About 51% have actually started in a race by their four-year-old season ….

Why many foals never race includes lack of athletic talent >>often translates as not fast enough<<

behavioral or temperament issues >>generally avoidable with good handling and low stress<<

developmental or physical injuries (wastage) >>should be avoidable or greatly reduced if horses were not started before they were physically mature<<

or being redirected into alternative equestrian sports or breeding roles before hitting the track

>>Generally redirected to alternative equestrian happens post racing, not before<<

>>TB foal numbers born for the 2025 year were 11283 – so if 50% never race?

What happens to the other 5641 horses? What about the other (not 2025) years?

What happens to ALL these horses?

Barriers to entering race training before 4 years of age for Thoroughbred horses born in the 2014 Australian foal crop

• Meredith L. Flash , Adelene S. M. Wong, Mark A. Stevenson, James R. Gilkerson

Australian researchers recently completed a five-year study tracking down the foals born in the racing Thoroughbred industry in 2014. Of those foals, only 66% entered training in Australia, and 5% were exported to other countries. What happened to the other 28%?

“Many of them died, mainly due to injury or illness,”

said veterinarian and researcher, Meredith Flash …..Centre for Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Melbourne…..

Below from ‘horses and people’ website, How Many Foals End up Racing?

Article by Christa Lesté-Lasserre | Sep 21, 2020

*Specifically, 38% of the group of horses that never trained didn’t live long enough to enter training, Flash said

* “That seems like a lot, that 38%,” she said.

>>SEEMS like a lot?<<

*“But it’s important to keep in mind that that’s ONLY 11% of the whole foal crop, including those that did enter racing.”

>>With the 2025 breeding figures of 12300 per year, that would be “ONLY” 1353 deaths of horses under 4yo <<

Post racing

From Thoroughbred report

Head of Education at The Australian Veterinary Association Dr Meredith Flash led research published in 2021 that analysed the destinations of 2509 horses coming off the track in the 2017/18 season, and ascertained that 30 per cent went into thoroughbred breeding, 45 per cent went on to equestrian pursuits, and 8.4 per cent found companion homes.

>>That adds up to 83.5% -

Leaves 16.5% unaccounted for? 414 horses? Where? Dead? <<

These are lives we are talking about here – not just statistics.

The racing industry needs to be accountable, and needs to setup and enforce keeping a recording system.

Too many rescues are already struggling. 12000 foals per year, even with high mortality rates (too high) and ’wastage’ (also too high) there are too many thoroughbreds leaving racing that would struggle to find good homes, that will fall through the cracks.

Racing is a multi billion dollar industry.

The Australian thoroughbred breeding industry contributes nearly $1.68 billion annually to the Australian economy and provides full-time employment for over 9,000 people, predominantly in rural and regional areas (Agrifutures Aust)

Racenet website

In 2021-22, $29 billion was wagered on thoroughbred racing in Australia (an average of nearly $80 million a day).

Such a huge industry could surely mandate setting aside funds to support retraining and rehoming the equines that race to generate this income?

Chances are high many of these animals either end up deceased, in welfare, neglected or otherwise. The numbers we are talking about are way too high for incorporating into other equestrian pursuits.

They need a safety net, and the industry that exploits them should be funding this.