Tasracing has received Dr David Sykes’ Animal Welfare Review it commissioned earlier this year.
A copy of the review is available via this link. Please note, personal information on pages 45-46 has been redacted for privacy reasons.
The review makes 83 recommendations.
While these recommendations are being appropriately and properly considered by Tasracing, an immediate analysis of the paper shows that six of the recommendations are already in place, while the implementation of a further 30 recommendations are already underway.
Further, some of the recommendations are informed by experiences in international jurisdictions and may not be relevant to Tasmania, but this will become clearer as the recommendations are reviewed in detail.
Regardless, Tasracing and the Tasmanian racing industry remain committed to transparency and industry performance reporting.
Tasracing acting chief executive officer Andrew Jenkins said the industry in Tasmania was well regulated and policed by the Office of Racing Integrity.
“Anyone in our industry who does the wrong thing is not only quickly identified but dealt with accordingly,” he said.
Mr Jenkins said while the Tasmanian racing industry had introduced a variety of relevant welfare reforms over recent years, there needed to be ongoing conversations around the welfare of racing animals.
“Tasracing and the industry accepts that there needs to be a consistent welfare focus going forward,” he said.
“It is within this context that Tasracing commissioned this work to independently assess our welfare-related programs and benchmark them against Best Practice.”