These animals are at the very heart of our sport, and their safety and wellbeing is essential for everyone involved. Our job as a racing venue is to constantly minimise risks for all participants.
We achieve this through strict rules and regulations around race conduct, and by ensuring a safe and fair racing surface.
We are committed to ensuring all races take place on a track rated ‘Good 4’ or softer. This means we actively water our tracks using state-of-the-art irrigation systems to prevent horses from racing on firm ground, reducing injury risks. Our teams sometimes work all night to monitor the irrigation, especially during hot summer weeks when we might irrigate the equivalent of more than 100mm of rain. We invest thousands of hours into track preparation, moving the rails between every race meeting to ensure horses race on fresh pads of turf. We also keep the grass long and thick to provide additional cover and prevent moisture evaporation. For more details, visit Racing Australia’s track rating scale at https://www.racingaustralia.horse/FAQ/Track-Ratings.aspx
At every raceday, Perth Racing has two qualified vets in attendance to ensure the horses’ welfare and safety. All competing horses are assessed three times before each race—once in the parade ring, once in the Mounting Yard, and then again at the barriers. The vets have full discretion to prevent any horse from racing if deemed unfit and provide necessary treatments on-site.
Perth Racing follows Racing WA’s ‘Racing in Hot Weather Policy’. If the temperature exceeds 38 degrees, we either cancel the races or move the start time to a cooler part of the day. If the temperature is above 35 degrees, we implement various measures to ensure participant safety, such as reducing parade times and allowing horses to return to the stalls immediately after racing. We also have misting fans, wash-down bays, ice, and air-conditioned stables to keep horses cool. For more details, see the Racing in Hot Weather Policy.
In partnership with Racing WA, we are upgrading our training tracks with a new Polytrack (artificial training surface) to ensure that we offer state-of-the-art facilities to those horses being trained at Ascot. We are also refurbishing our jog tracks around the infield of Ascot, installing almost 4km of new plastic safety railing and improving the surfaces. We partner with some of the leading equine research practitioners in WA to ensure that they have access to monitor the hundreds of horses that are trained at Ascot to continually improve our knowledge of equine training and physiology.
Perth Racing has plans to create approximately 400 new on-course stables and to develop an equine welfare centre of excellence at Ascot. These facilities will include a new equine swimming pool, horse walkers, and sand rolls, ensuring Ascot remains the epicentre of thoroughbred racing in Western Australia.
Racing WA invests millions annually in veterinary research and re-homing projects for retired racehorses, such as the Off The Track Scheme. These programs are partly funded by deductions from racing prize money, with 1% dedicated to equine welfare projects. You can learn more about these projects at https://www.weareanimalpeople.com.au/equine-welfare/.
If you want to learn more about the racing industry’s commitment to equine welfare or have questions about how the racing community looks after its horses, visit https://kickup.com.au.