Making the case for the ethical involvement of horses in sport

History

Just over three years ago I discussed the progress being made with social license and went on to set out my case for the ethical involvement of horses in equine sport. Since then things have moved on and I've revised the frame work of my case to better define the claims and arguments.

Clickbait - the horse trotted off unscathed, the rider took a little longer to recover
©Harveywetdog

The structure of the case
©Harveywetdog

The title of the case is The involvement of horses in sport does not compromise their welfare and ensures "a good life for horses"

I provided six high level claims in support of this statement

Claim 1 Equine welfare is our overriding priority

Claim 2 an open reporting culture leads to continuous improvement

Claim 3 all participants in equine sport are suitably qualified and experienced

Claim 4 the use of appropriate standards

Claim 5 risks are known, mitigated, managed and weighed against societal benefits

Claim 6 equine sport is appropriately regulated

Against each claim arguments were set out which provided an indication of the evidence that would be required to support the case.

The arguments are provided in the attached presentation but as an example here are the arguments supporting claim five "risks are known, mitigated, managed and weighed against societal benefits".

1. Risks involved with equine involvement in sport are known
2. The risks involved are managed to be as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP)
3. The societal benefits of equine involvement in sport are known
4. The benefits are demonstrated to be consistent with a good life for horses

A diagram is provided to help illustrate claim 5.

Perceived Risk and Societal Concern
The ALARP triangle
©Harveywetdog based on HSE original concept

It was also necessary to explain that currently the case was aspirational, and represented a journey being taken rather than claiming to have achieved an ultimate goal. In my mind this was not dissimilar to the "zero harm" goals we had at EdF, we were driving injuries to zero but that didn't mean we were clear of accidents yet.

Gathering Evidence

In order to underwrite the case, hard evidence would be required. At the time of writing I imagined the evidence would come largely from the work set out in the FEI Equine Ethics and Wellbeing Commission. You may remember my proud boast, "if my previous colleagues can make a case for the safe operation of Hinkley Point C Nuclear Power Station on the North Somerset coast, then I am confident we can make a case for the safe continuation of Equestrian Sport within the UK."

Roll forward to 2026 and I thought why not let AI complete the task for me? So I asked Microsoft CoPilot to critique what I'd done and then supply the evidence. This video below is the result. The voice is generated by Adobe AI from the AI generated speaker notes and while they're not perfect it is a lot easier than dictating it all myself. But don't forget AI is still learning and can get things wrong - in which case I apologise.

How AI Critiqued the Case and Provided Evidence

1. How does the ALARP risk-tolerance framework map to specific policies or incidents?

- The ALARP model (As Low As Reasonably Practicable) on the final slide borrows directly from safety engineering — it divides risk into three zones: *broadly acceptable*, *tolerable* (where mitigation effort must be proportional), and *unacceptable* (where the activity must stop or be fundamentally redesigned). In the context of this presentation, it frames equine sport as sitting in the **tolerable zone**, meaning the risks are real but manageable if continuously driven downward.

- In practice, the FEI's Equine Welfare Strategy Action Plan operationalizes this through 37 targeted actions across areas like ethical training methods (banning hyperflexion/rollkur), tack and equipment regulation (bits, nosebands, spurs, double bridles), fitness-to-compete checks, post-mortem protocols, and out-of-competition testing. Each action has a designated FEI department owner and an implementation timeline running through 2027.

- The "decreasing return on risk mitigation" label on the diagram is key — it acknowledges that beyond a certain point, additional restrictions yield diminishing welfare improvements while potentially making the sport unviable. This is the core tension the framework tries to balance: how much risk reduction is "reasonably practicable" before you effectively eliminate the activity itself.

- Specific incidents that pressured this framework include high-profile horse fatalities at competition, the dressage rollkur controversy, and the 2021 Tokyo Olympics modern pentathlon incident (where a coach struck a horse), all of which eroded public trust and accelerated the FEI's creation of the EEWB Commission in 2022.

 2. Strongest and weakest claims — where would critics push back?

 Strongest claims:

- Claim 5 (Risk management via ALARP) is the most structurally rigorous because it borrows a well-established engineering methodology with decades of legal and industrial precedent. It provides a defensible, evidence-based framework rather than relying on aspirational language.

- Claim 6 (Appropriate regulation) is strengthened by the fact that the FEI does maintain both internal regulation and external independent bodies — the EEWB Commission and the new permanent FEI Equine Welfare Advisory Group (FEWAG), chaired independently and staffed with academics and veterinary scientists.

Weakest claims — and where critics push back:

- Claim 1 ("Welfare is our overriding priority") is the most vulnerable. Critics, including the 2025 Uldahl & Mellor commentary in the journal Animals, argue that the culture and structure of horse sport still systematically prioritizes competitive results and commercial interests. The claim that "commercial decisions never outweigh equine welfare" is aspirational but hard to demonstrate when prize money, sponsorship, and breeding economics are central to the sport's structure.

- Claim 2 (Open reporting culture) faces scepticism because whistleblowing in equestrian sport remains difficult. Multiple sources note that insiders who report welfare concerns risk professional retaliation, and the sport's self-regulatory nature means enforcement can be inconsistent across national federations.

(It is worth noting that I never thought that this would just be about whistleblowing, but would cover incident and event reporting and the action taken to address any findings from these reports.) 

- Claim 3 (All participants are SQEP) is hard to verify globally. While FEI-level competition has qualification standards, the vast majority of equestrian activity happens below FEI level, where training quality and welfare awareness vary enormously.

3. How does this compare to ethical governance in other animal sports?

 The presentation's safety-case approach is **unusually sophisticated** compared to governance in other animal sports. Here's how they compare:

- Greyhound racing has faced the sharpest social-license collapse. The Scottish Animal Welfare Commission's 2023 report found significant injury risks and concluded the industry lacked the desire to make the "very significant changes" needed. Unlike equestrian sport's proactive EEWB framework, greyhound racing governance has been largely reactive — bans have spread across 44 U.S. states, most of Australia, and much of Europe, driven more by public rejection than internal reform. The key difference: greyhound racing never developed an equivalent to the FEI's structured safety case or independent welfare commission.

- Rodeo operates with the least external oversight. The U.S. Animal Welfare Act explicitly exempts rodeos, and governance is fragmented across bodies like the PRCA, IPRA, and WRCA — plus an estimated 20% of U.S. rodeos are entirely unsanctioned. Self-regulation dominates, with no independent welfare body analogous to the EEWB Commission. At the 2024 AAEP Convention, rodeo representatives acknowledged that the concept of "social license" was still relatively new to their community.

- The social-license concept unites all these sports but at different stages of maturity. Equestrian sport is furthest along in formally addressing it — the FEI created the EEWB Commission in 2022, published 30 recommendations by 2023, and launched a 37-action implementation plan with timelines. Horse racing sits in the middle, having been forced into reform by high-profile fatalities. Rodeo and greyhound racing remain at the earliest stages, with governance still primarily industry-led.

- The safety-case methodology itself — borrowed from engineering and nuclear industries — is what makes this presentation's approach genuinely novel in animal sport. No other animal sport discipline has attempted to build a formal, structured safety case with claims, arguments, and evidence in the way Robinson proposes here.

Key Takeaways 

- Robinson's framework is ahead of the curve compared to other animal sports, but the gap between its aspirational structure and on-the-ground enforcement is the central vulnerability critics will target.

- The ALARP model gives the framework analytical rigor, but its "tolerable zone" conclusion depends entirely on how honestly risks and benefits are weighed — and who gets to define "reasonably practicable."

This is a fair comment, and I agree it does depend on honesty and coming to an agreement that the correct steps have been taken to mitigate risks.  

- Across all animal sports, the trend is the same: public tolerance is declining, and sports that don't proactively build transparent, evidence-based welfare governance risk the kind of social-license collapse that has effectively ended greyhound racing in most jurisdictions.

I allowed the AI to build the evidence into the case and produce the speaker notes which you hear in the presentation. There are still some areas where it needs improving, I would like to have heard more about rider qualifications and output from the dressage working group, but I felt it was mature enough to be made public and invite feedback.

  

In Summary

As I explain in the presentation this case is aspirational, because we are on a journey and in all reality we will never quite get there, we should always want to seek improvement. But I hope you will agree we are heading in the right direction.  

It is to be hoped that we get a lot of feedback from all sides of the argument, but we will have to wait and see.   

 

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Harveywetdog/Author - David Robinson CEng FIET 

David spent approaching 50 years in Her Majesty's Electricity Supply Industry before retiring

He was part of the highly successful design team on the Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station Project before spending 25 years producing safety cases to keep our aging AGR fleet generating for the good of the nation

He is responsible for the Harveywetdog YouTube Channel which he maintains as an outlet for his creative talents

David has twice experienced blood cancer treatment but absolutely refuses to be a victim

All views are of course his own but might be influenced by the medication he's having to take