Age – just a number or a way to decide when horses should retire?

How old is too old to be a racehorse? Pertinently, is 15 too old to be running in races? The belated news that the 15-year-old Big Fella Thanks was put down in May after sustaining an injury at Cheltenham that month, as reported in The Guardian, may fuel debate.

BHA figures suggest that the mortality rate in British racing has dropped markedly in the last two decades and stands at a little under 0.2 per cent of runners. This encouraging trend will be absolutely no consolation whatsoever to trainer Tom George and his family, for whom Big Fella Thanks was more a member of the household than a racehorse and whose great loss can easily be imagined.

After the revelation of the gelding's death there came immediate input from a spokesman for Animal Aid, which would in any case like to see the elimination of horseracing altogether, and from the RSPCA, whose stance is more rooted in reality, in regard to whether there should be an age limit in place for racehorses. This is a complex problem.