Over the last 18 months, the TBA has been conducting a comprehensive project to understand the traceability of the British-bred thoroughbred herd, the analysis of which will be shared over the coming months as part of a wider industry collective.

The 2018 foal crop was originally selected, latterly followed by the 2019 foal crop, and all available data, including births, deaths, racecourse performances, sales results and export status, were  accessed. Then came the hard yards of tracking and tracing every animal for that year: after countless emails, phone calls and burning the midnight oil, the locations or statuses of 96% of the  2018, and 98% of the 2019 foal crops, became known.

What became clear early on was that this was far too big a job to conduct manually on a yearly basis and whilst the project demonstrated what was possible, at the same time it underlined the  challenges of what is needed moving forward.

In simple terms, the industry must be more transparent to maintain and grow the trust of the general public. This will enhance the positive perception of thoroughbred breeding and racing and protect the social licence to operate. Essentially, not only do welfare provisions have to be of the highest standards, but racing must also be fully transparent and accountable in respect of  the horses it breeds and uses. Agricultural livestock is light years ahead of horses in general, with a sophisticated herd traceability system that can track the whereabouts and status of every cow, sheep and pig in the country.

The optics of horseracing being a ‘rich man’s’ sport (no matter what the reality might be) demands that the thoroughbred sector provides for the same. The good news is that by default,  horseracing has begun this journey with the 30-day foal notification associated with an Equine Premises Number (so that we know where they are at birth), and microchips linked to digital  passports.

Thoroughbreds also have a system of ‘event management through registration’ where births, deaths, naming, medical treatments, vaccinations, and full integration with veterinary information systems and stud book software is available. Add to this a timelier requirement for recorded ownership and the tools are in place to build on delivery.

Ensuring compliance with all the above is vital, with further administration and registration processes inevitable, as has been the case with 30-day notification. It might not be convenient, but it  will be a task the industry has to embrace if it wants to survive and prosper. It isn’t sufficient to merely claim the highest standards of equine welfare; these must be demonstrated in our actions. Traceability offers the opportunity of prevention being better than the cure in welfare standards!

While many difficult steps have already been taken, now comes the need for significant financial investment to build an IT system to provide central database management in order to gather all the data and process it for dynamic reporting and action. That’s not as simple as it sounds, as compliance with animal legislative requirements, data standards, user interfaces, security and privacy all need to be inbuilt as well.

This is a major IT project and requires significant capital, but it cannot be put off or ignored, and one way or another must be implemented. Project Beacon, the consumer research project which runs alongside Project Pace, focused upon the jobs to be done in attracting new and younger audiences to the domestic racing programme – at the centre of its conclusions was that these  generations will ask the difficult but important questions that can only be answered with full visibility in respect of the lifetime of thoroughbreds. Failure to do so will signal not only disinterest but an industry that refuses to hold itself to account.

So, what next? Well, this is not and cannot be a TBA project alone – in the first place we don’t have the resource either financially or structurally and anyway, this is an all-industry challenge to collectively overcome. The TBA is working with stakeholders, demonstrating what is required and how that might be delivered.

Traceability is another key to the future of this important industry and a responsibility that we cannot shirk. Accountability, transparency, and good governance are embedded in all sectors today and racing and breeding should not want to be an exception.