Verifying thoroughbred racehorse fatalities through Equibase chart review.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Equibase (EQB) race charts provide the official record of North American Thoroughbred races and often document catastrophic injury, euthanasia, or equine-ambulance transport. Because chart documentation and regulatory classification differ, fatalities occurring > 72 hours after a race fall outside international regulatory definitions applied by the Equine Injury Database (EID) and may not appear in EID aggregates. EQB charts confirm horse identity, race participation, finishing status, and last recorded start. Horseracing Wrongs (HRW), an advocacy group, publishes horse-level fatality data that can be independently evaluated using EQB records. OBJECTIVE: To assess the accuracy of HRW fatality listings through verification with EQB charts and comparison with publicly reported EID fatality totals. METHODS: All HRW-listed Thoroughbred fatalities in 2024 were reviewed. EQB charts were used to confirm horse identity, racetrack, race date, finishing status, and incident-related footnotes. Verified HRW totals were compared with EID fatality counts for all 22 publicly reporting tracks. RESULTS: Among 381 HRW-listed fatalities, 275 were race-related Thoroughbred deaths; 268 (97.5%) were verified through EQB review, and seven (2.5%) could not be confirmed. Among verified cases, 78% were recorded as did not finish, and 84.3% contained serious-incident footnotes. Verified HRW totals closely matched EID counts, differing only by six fatalities outside the 72-hour reporting window; 20 of 22 tracks matched exactly. CONCLUSION: EQB chart verification demonstrated high concordance between HRW listings and publicly reported EID data. HRW provides a publicly accessible source of horse-level fatality information that can be independently verified and contextualized using official racing records.