News

Jumps racing hits the wall

29th Nov 2009

The Age - Friday, 27 November 2009

Jumps racing in Victoria will end after the 2010 racing season, Racing Victoria Limited says.

The RVL board says a program of high-weight races will be scheduled for the 2011 season to help jumps jockeys, trainers and horses go through the transition.

The historic decision comes after a series of deaths marred the 2009 jumps season.

RVL chairman Michael Duffy said it was an "extremely tough" decision for the board.

"The board could not allow jumps racing to wither on the vine or, worse still, become the victim of an immediate knee jerk ban at some future point in time," Mr Duffy said.

"Despite the implementation of all the safety recommendations of the Jones report conducted in 2008 the incidence of falls and fatalities has continued to increase.

"The recommendation of six previous reviews had been implemented without any sustained reduction in incidents."

RVL adopted all the essential safety recommendations made by Judge David Jones in his 200-page Jumps Racing Review, which was delivered in December last year.

Despite the changes, eight horses died in jumps races this season, after 12 were killed last year.

RVL conducted an urgent review in July and decided to continue jumps racing with changed conditions, pending the outcome of its final review which was handed down today.

Country Racing Victoria chief Scott Whiteman said the decision was "unbelievable".

"We are absolutely gutted by the decision and we can’t believe it," Mr Whiteman said.

RSPCA Victorian president Hugh Wirth says the animal rights group has battled against jumps racing since 1980.

"It’s taken a long time, but this couldn’t be better news," he said.

"Despite large numbers of reviews which have always backed jumps racing, the writing has been on the wall for some time now."

He said nothing had changed in jumps racing despite the Jones review.

"The results have never altered. (There has been) the same level of injury, the same level of death, regardless of what’s been done."

Dr Wirth said the RSPCA would prefer jumps racing to end immediately instead of being allowed to continue next year, but it agreed those involved should be given a year’s notice.

"The difficulty for us is it's another year of jumps racing and there will be horses injured and horses killed," he said.

The decision means the three-day Grand Annual Steeplechase carnival in Warrnambool next May will be its last after 138 years, but RVL has promised $1 million to help promote the 2011 carnival which will be conducted as a flat racing event.

Speaking on SEN radio, the CEO of Racing Victoria, Rob Hines, said it was a "very tough day today for everybody" in the racing industry. "If you look at the trends over the past five years ... every statistic ... everything is in decline."

Hines refuted that jumps racing was cruel, saying horse loved to jump and the people who raced jumpers loved their horses. But he conceded that there had been a "change in common perception" about jumps racing, and that the industry was "just not sustainable in the long-term."

However Rodney Ray from the Australasian Jump Racing Association said "... not only the AJA but the industry will be taking it further .... it is an appalling decision."