Obviously we must be mindful of horse welfare, and for the welfare of the people charged with their care during the course of a long long day. Box stalls on course would obviously be desirable but aren’t available at Melton. The yearlings when the premier trotting sale was on managed to stand in the tie up stalls for for virtually all day. Granted some racehorses may find it more difficult but that I guess is part of the difference between being a racehorse and being a good racehorse.

As a one off, or on infrequent occasions such as features, it would be possible to make the stalls more hospitable to horses with comfort flooring mats, or perhaps shavings or straw. And whilst it would be an additional responsibility for stable staff they could be walked.

Granted they don’t race immediately on arrival but what is the length of a racehorses journey from western Victoria to Menangles environs by truck, where they are confined to a stall for a journey? I don’t think any of the transports stops and unloads on the journey anymore. Certainly one of the horse transport companies no longer stops and does a 24 hour leg between the quarantine station in Kalgoolie and their base near Adelaide whilst the horses stand in their stalls.

At the barest minimum the horses we export to North America will stand in stalls for 24 hours as they undertake the journey. Those that go via the polar route, as many now do, to disembark on the East Coast will be a minimum of 36 hours in the narrow confines of the shipping crate and longer still if there are unexpected delays on the journey. No one in Australia seems to quote “animal welfare” as a reason not to sell them for export to the US.

So whilst standing them in the stalls at Melton for long periods during a race meeting may not be ideal I don’t think as an industry we can say solely on the basis of animal welfare that it can’t be done. Some shipping in from the further reaches of the state in an early race, with a stable mate in the last, and then shipping home again that night are already standing in a confined space for extended periods of time.