Close Calls: What can racing learn from two stalls incidents? Every choreographed movement and every command around the starting stalls exists for one reason, safety. Safety of the horses, safety of the jockeys and safety of the men and women handling them. That is why, two separate incidents, just a couple of months apart and in different jurisdictions, deserve a little more attention than they have received so far. The Curragh, Ireland In March at the Curragh, Irish racing held its breath as live on TV a stalls handler loaded a horse, came round the back of the stalls then turned and ran back out in front of the opening stalls. For viewers, this was nothing short of a suicide mission. The stalls handler claimed to have dropped an item and was attempting to retrieve it. He was struck by one of the horses before being knocked to the ground. Remarkably, he was not seriously hurt and no horses or jockeys were brought down. The IHRB’s raceday enquiry heard evidence that the starter had followed procedures and that the stalls handler’s actions had taken everyone by complete surprise. The matter was referred to a Senior Racing Official for further investigation, we have heard no more about this. IHRB REPORT VIDEO Mont-de-Marson, France Fast forward to last week in France and another bizarre situation, this time at Mont-de-Marson. On this occasion, the stalls opened before the handler had exited the front gate. They were struck repeatedly by the horses, two jockeys were unseated and the race was immediately declared void. Amazingly again, everyone walked away without serious injury but this could have been an absolute tragedy. VIDEO How can we stop this from happening again? Obviously, these kinds of incidents don’t happen very often. That is thanks to the skilled horsemen and women who work on the stalls. That said, we shouldn’t ignore them purely because they are rare. As an industry, we are very good at learning and improving. We have improved many areas of the racecourse because we have examined incidents honestly and made changes as a result. Could communication between the starter and the stalls handlers be improved? Should alcohol and drug testing be introduced as it is with jockeys? Should fitness tests be required? Medicals? The amount of social media attention that both of these incidents have received, I do feel that the general public and racing industry deserve to know what procedures are being put in place to ensure these incidents don’t happen every few months.
