HISA reports 99.91% of starts without racing-related equine fatalities

HISA’s first-quarter numbers gave racing a clean headline, but the deeper question is whether the sport’s safety gains are real progress or just a good quarter. The authority reported 0.95 racing-related equine fatalities per 1,000 starts at tracks under its rules, meaning 99.91% of starts finished without a fatality.

That mark compares favorably with HISA’s 2025 full-year rate of 1.04 per 1,000 starts, and it sits just above the 0.90 per 1,000 starts HISA reported for 2024, still the lowest annual rate the authority has posted. It also comes with a broader window into the game: HISA said the first quarter included 26,513 unique covered horses that either worked or raced, and the total racing- and training-related fatality rate for that covered population was 0.29%.

The strongest credibility test is not the headline alone, but whether the trend is matched by enforcement and visible change on the backside. HISA said crop rule violations were down 32% year over year to 2.84 per 1,000 starts, a sign that safety oversight and compliance are moving in the same direction. For a reform effort that has often been judged as much by confidence as by numbers, that matters.

The report also put the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority Equine Recovery Foundation in the frame for the first time as a direct safety outcome. HISA said the foundation saved five horses from euthanasia in the quarter. Three, Candy, Cosmo and Quirky, would otherwise have been racing-related fatalities. A companion summary said two more, Chrissy and Pie, were saved from training-related fatalities and are now moving on to second careers.

Even so, the report shows where the danger still lives. HISA said 81% of racing-related fatalities were musculoskeletal, 16% were sudden death and 3% were other causes. That breakdown is a reminder that the biggest gains will not come from one fix, but from sustained work on breakdown prevention, veterinary oversight and track-level consistency.

HISA has been pointing to comparison points for a reason. In 2024, 47 racetracks operating under its ADMC and Racetrack Safety programs recorded an aggregate racing-related fatality rate of 0.90 per 1,000 starts, better than The Jockey Club’s Equine Injury Database figure of 1.11 for North America and the 1.76 rate at U.S. tracks not covered by HISA rules. The latest quarter suggests the baseline can still be pushed lower. The harder part is proving the sport can trust the numbers for more than one report at a time.