UK Jockey Club: Relentless Effort on Safety Needed

While protests of horse racing can stress the sport's leadership, participants, and fans, The Jockey Club of the United Kingdom has learned that such moments also can provide opportunity to provide the general public facts on equine safety and highlight improvements that have been made.

Speaking last month at the International Conference of Horseracing Authorities in Paris, Nevin Truesdale, CEO of The Jockey Club in the UK, said in a world with changing expectations on the use of animals in sport, racing needs continued vigilance on equine safety itself as well as in communicating those protections to the public. He said that emphasis will be key in attracting younger fans.

"We want to attract new people and new fans to this sport. That's a key part of our strategy at The Jockey Club," Truesdale said. "We're only going to be able to do that if we are absolutely relentless around some of the changes that we need to make to improve what is already a very strong record on equine welfare. But we are in no position at all to be complacent on that."

Truesdale said safety has to be the highest priority and as racing makes strides in this area it needs to communicate those improvements—and often counter falsehoods circulated by the sport's opponents. He noted that a protest by an animal rights group, Animal Rising, that delayed the Grand National for 15 or 20 minutes and the threat of such a recurrence on Epsom Derby day were widely covered by UK media outlets.

He noted that such coverage provided an opportunity for racing to get its message out. Good news on that front is he provided survey results that showed a large group accepting of racing, a small group opposing it, and a very large group in the middle that can be persuaded either way. He did note that as the survey looked at results from younger people, as a group they had more concerns about racing than older responders.

"Changing some of these misconceptions and some of these perceptions around welfare is absolutely critical," Truesdale said. "That's why across The Jockey Club this is something we were able to talk about in our PR communications during the Animal Rising threat. We have very specific activity and relentless focus on investment, data analysis, and communications and campaigning. Those are the three bases of how we operate and why we put it at the heart of everything we do."

Truesdale noted that racing doesn't typically get much opportunity to tell its story in the media. Because the sport had made the investment in safety, knew the details of that record, and effectively communicated it, the sport fared well in expressing a reasonable opinion during coverage of the protest and planned protest.

For the sport, it's not an effort where a victory flag is expected to soon be raised. In terms of offering security around its big race days, The UK Jockey Club will continue to offer areas where protestors can peacefully congregate but it will work with law enforcement to protect the safe running of its events. And each day it will continue to make safety a priority and will work to communicate that message.