We are all acutely aware of the importance of two-year-old racing, not least its role in influencing the commercial market. However, there are currently ripples to the status quo that leaves its place in racing in Germany in limbo.

Following a revision of German animal welfare laws, it is now illegal to train horses younger than 30 months of age. As far as racing is concerned, an exemption has been secured while a behavioural study on the physical and mental health on the horses in question is undertaken and analysed.

Germany already has restrictive rules on two-year-old competition; a two-year-old can race no more than six times in their first year and can only start their racing career in June of that season. It is anticipated that the exemption will run until 2027, when it is expected that the study – Project Horsewatch – will be presented to Parliament. Should the 30-month rule still be deemed appropriate, there could well be implications for other EU countries, including France and Ireland, under EU law.

To that end, Newmarket recently played host to a seminar discussing the issue. Organised at the Jockey Club rooms by Fred Barrelet, consultant to Newmarket veterinary practice Rossdales, it hosted representatives from different corners of the equine world including international racing regulators and featured speakers such as trainers John Gosden and Sir Mark Todd in addition to successful Florida-based pre-trainer Nick de Meric.

“My concern was that those who were investigating on behalf of the study were behavioural scientists with little knowledge of the industry or how Thoroughbreds were reared,” says Barrelet. “So that led me to organising this workshop, to bring them over and spend a weekend in Newmarket where the scientifically valid question of ‘what is the maturity of a young horse and how do we assess it’ could be asked.”

We’ve all got to work together on this

As you would expect, the seminar was well attended, with representatives of the British Horseracing Authoirty (BHA), France Galop, the Japan Racing Authority (JRA), US Jockey Club, Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) and British Equestrian Federation (BEF) among those in attendance.

“We’ve all got to work together on this,” says Barrelet. “Sir Mark Todd breaches numerous worlds, which is why I asked him to speak. And we had good representation from the welfare world – Roly Owers from World Horse Welfare and Madeleine Campbell from Nottingham University were also engaged to speak.

“The international delegates also had a day to visit Newmarket, where we had a morning on the gallops, a tour of John Gosden’s yard, a visit to the racecourse and a tour of the National Stud, where we went from paddock to paddock and finished up with the stallions. The German participants who hadn’t seen any of this before or had only been exposed to German racing suddenly had an introduction to British racing and the international game. And good questions were asked.”

He adds: “My aim was not to influence their research but to say ‘this is the context in which you are working’. And I think it worked well.”

Everybody was fast asleep on this

The background to this goes back several years to the revision of German animal welfare laws. At the time, there was no legally defined minimum age for training and competition and its impact on welfare.

“What came out of it were three directives that are actually probably more legally hard-hitting than our guidelines in that they are used by the courts and also the state veterinarians to interpret German law,” says Barrelet. “In it they introduced a rule that you may not train or compete with a horse that’s under 30 months of age.

“Everybody was fast asleep on this. It didn’t really affect the sports horse world. Then the racing world suddenly woke up and said ‘this is going to affect us’ and went back to the German Equestrian Federation (FN). A spokesperson there came into contact with the German Ministry of Agriculture and highlighted that it wouldn’t work for racing, and also trotters and Quarter Horses. The Ministry then went back to Parliament and said, ‘well, where’s the evidence on the maturity of horses?’. Some evidence was supplied but it was more on physical maturity, and so the question then was, ‘is this a welfare issue and what is the mental attitude of a horse?’. So Parliament came back to the Ministry and said ‘we’ll fund a study into the maturity of young horses to include the mental aspect as well as physical, and it has to apply to all breeds’.”

And so the Horsewatch project was born.

“There had to be a scientific advisory board and this is made up by representatives from the state as well as private welfare institutions,” says Barrelet. “It’s made up of various equestrian associations across the different disciplines. I was then invited to join the group and I attended their first meeting, where they presented what they were going to do. Two things from a Thoroughbred perspective concerned me. Within the directive itself, it states that its co-signatories, which are the associations involved, are to support the German federal government in its endeavours to introduce similar legislation at EU level and internationally. So automatically, that becomes France, Ireland and so one – suddenly the global thoroughbred industry is affected.”

I find that the most important button when I am training horses is the pause button

He adds: “There is no science behind 30 months in any literature – that’s arbitrarily plucked out of the sky.”

In Newmarket, John Gosden kicked off the day’s discussions by looking at when is the young Thoroughbred ready to race.

“With young horses I tend to wait for them to present themselves to me,” he said. “If you go looking for them, or pushing them, you will do more harm than good. I find that the most important button when I am training horses is the pause button. But if you have a horse who is precocious and comes forward to you, it is the wrong thing not to train that horse.”

He also highlighted that ‘bone density increases from early training’.

Nick de Meric also pointed to the research, in some cases carried out by the US Jockey Club, that demonstrated how early training can be critical to a young horse’s development. For instance, renowned Kentucky vet Larry Bramlage has stated that the ideal training of youngstock is to produce bone that can withstand load. A two-year-old’s metabolism and physiology can undergo and withstand training to repurpose the developing cells and vasculature for bone growth. Early exercise helps to cope with this growth.

each animal will tell you what you can do with it at the right time and age

“If the research comes back and says what we’ve been doing for the past 300 years has been wrong, then so be it,” says Barrelet. “But that’s not the case. As John Gosden and Nick de Meric have pointed out, it’s an animal by animal basis and if you’re a competent trainer, each animal will tell you what you can do with it at the right time and age.”

Indeed, George Lambton, a revered trainer of his time, even alludes to the racing of yearlings in the Newmarket area in his autobiography ‘Men and Horses That I Have Known’.

For now, those involved in German racing can do little but wait. In the meantime, participants are operating within an arena of increased veterinary checks and costs.

“Technically in Germany, the law is enforced,” says Barrelet. “So to accommodate for operating with an exemption, they have introduced two examinations; one when the horse goes into training, where it undergoes an assessment by a vet who is not the stable vet, and then another within two weeks of its first start. That includes a pyschometric assessment as well as the standard physical assessment

“As the three trainers said last week, a vet cannot assess a horse thoroughly in 30 minutes. You have to be with those animals day in day out.”

The past few years have illustrated that racing cannot fail to take its social licence for-granted. In her talk, Madeleine Campbell highlighted that in a survey assessing horse welfare in sport, 40 per cent of the population supported the continued development of horses used for sport. However, 52 per cent felt that welfare should be prioritised. It is true that Germany’s programme for two-year-old racing does not hold the same weight as other European countries (it stages just four two-year-old Pattern races per year) but at the same time, any momentum behind such an outright ban is going to have far-reaching consequences.

“We’ve got the international racing world aware of this now and the sports horse world as well,” says Barrelet. “It’s too early to tell how it will be evaluated politically. It’s concerning but we’ll just have to engage with it all.”