‘They are contributing to their horse’s whole life, not just racing’:  MyRacehorse committed to aftercare

Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything

MyRacehorse released their second annual Transitioned Horse Audit this week, a report which tracks every horse they've had through their ownership system and where they are now.

“We employ Jen Krawczyk as our Equine Welfare expert. She does a lot of freelance consulting for various places such as the International Forum for the Aftercare of Racehorses and Racing Victoria. Having someone like her with so much credibility in this space is important to us at MyRacehorse. We wanted to know if our welfare outcomes were achievable, and we want to own the results," said Ben Willis, Managing Director of MyRacehorse Australia.

Micro-shares and a macro number of horses

MyRacehorse launched in Australia in 2021 and is a unique business model offering micro-shares in horses to the public. An ASIC compliant Managed Investment Scheme, MyRacehorse’s shares are all sold with a one-time payment to cover the purchase of the horse, ongoing costs, the retirement fund, and a management fee.

“We have 50 to 60 horses in work at any time, with up to 3000 owners per horse, and we didn’t want to take our welfare outcomes to market unless we could stand behind them. Jen spends a few hours a week following up on our past horses and does this annual audit of every horse we used to have and where they are now. Jen is constantly in touch with the different people who have our horses, whether they bought them at online sales, or are owned by a stud farm, or went through a retirement program. The volume is significant but we believe the time is worth the outcome. This is the second year we’ve published our results.”

The Audit results

The inaugural report in 2023 covered 29 horses who retired from racing or were sold by MyRacehorse, known as ‘transitioned’ horses. Of those, two had died, and in 2024, another eight horses were added to the transitioned status, making a total of 35 horses in the current report. Of those, 15 are currently racing (for new owners after being sold by MyRacehorse), 11 are broodmares at a Thoroughbred stud, four horses informed MyRacehorse that they were intended for continued racing, three are retired paddock horses, one is a pleasure horse, and one died in the period between the 2023 and 2024 reports.

“It’s all about transparency. One of our horses So Unusual had a heart condition and was retired from racing because of it. About eight weeks later, he was found passed away in a paddock, and we captured that in the report too. In our 2023 report, we tracked Bernasconi had been sold to Singapore but unfortunately died of a snake bite there. As horses die, of any cause even old age, we will capture that in our annual reports. We want to make sure we know what is happening with our horses.”

Several owners post - MyRacehorse ownership

Arctic Jewel (Impending) is a 2019 born mare who was sold by MyRacehorse at an Inglis Digital Sale in December 2022, as an unraced 3-year-old filly. She was purchased by Saab Hasan who trained her for seven starts, then sold her at an Inglis Digital Sale in September 2023. She was bought by trainer Debbie Prest and ran second at her first start for her new trainer before having six more starts for a career total of 14 starts. She was retired by Prest in February 2024, and was sent to Curug Park for retraining. She has since been rehomed into a pleasure home.

“(Arctic Jewel)’s had several owners since she left us. MyRacehorse has stayed in touch with her current owner who hopes to take Arctic Jewel showjumping. Jen was comforted to discover that the racing industry are doing the right thing by their horses. The new owners are keeping in touch with us about our horses without us prompting them, but we also check in on every horse every three-six months. As a whole, the industry is doing the right thing and it’s nice to shed light on it.”

Racing Victoria's Full Circle program

MyRacehorse are registered with Racing Victoria’s Full Circle program that allows anyone previously involved with a horse to be registered as an emergency contact for that horse. Racing Victoria will contact the Full Circle owner in any case where a retired racehorse needs help, such as if they are surrendered to the RSPCA, or if the current owner needs help in finding a new home, at any point in their life. Racing Victoria currently has 2603 horses on their books with at least one Full Circle contact person.

“Before we offered this to our owners, we wanted to make sure that this (tracking) could be done. The last two years prove that it’s possible with 100% of our transitioned horses being tracked in our audit. We have our Horse Super Fund which is basically a retirement fund. It’s held separately to the other financials and for every purchase made by an owner, we put a portion in there. Our merchandise store also contributes with ten percent of every purchase going into the Super Fund. The money is only used to transitioning horses into their next step, whether that’s surgery for an injury, or retraining into a new career. These things cost money and we wanted to create something sustainable. It’s great to see it working as our owners know they are contributing to their horse’s whole life, not just racing.”

Whole of life traceability

Crystalaa (Shalaa {Ire}) is a 5-year-old gelding who had ten starts for MyRacehorse, winning twice and placing on two other occasions. He was sold MyRacehorse in the Inglis online sale in October 2023 and bought by WA trainer Tiarna Robertson. “We sent her the information about our post-racing commitment and our Super Fund.” Crystalaa had one start for Robertson in January 2024 and is listed in the official records as ‘failed to finish’. Robertson retrains her horses into new careers, and Crystalaa recently won his first dressage competition, and competed in a one-day event (dressage, cross country and show jumping) finishing in third place overall.

“We launched in June 2021 in Australia and already have 45,000 owners in our system. We did a survey of them all and one of the questions was asking if people had owned a horse before. Around 75% said they’d never owned a horse before. Another interesting fact that we are proud of is that around 20-30% of our owners have gone into more standard ownership after owning a micro-share with us.”

Gateway to racing ownership

Standard racehorse ownership is restricted to twenty owners and these owners can be either a person or a syndicate of owners. While it seems obvious that this means that the smallest share is 5%, the Rules Of Racing only state that the ownership must add up to 100%, so a horse could be owned in any combination of share amounts, including zero percent. To meet the rules, a horse could be owned 90% by one person and the remaining 19 owners sharing the final ten percent.

MyRacehorse puts together syndicates of micro-shares who own either a whole horse or a share in a horse. The example on their website is ‘if we own 60% of a horse, we offer 6,000 micro-shares at a value of 0.01%’ and this is listed in the racebook with MyRacehorse as the owner.

“MyRachorse as a brand has become a gateway for racing fans to get into ownership. Micro-shares overcome the biggest hurdle to ownership, the expense, and now we are seeing that the experience our owners are having is opening them up to being hooked on racehorse ownership and they are trying more options with other syndicators and through trainers for ownership. We don’t take this responsibility for granted. We want everyone to have an immersive experience, to feel like a proper owner regardless of how small their share might be (in dollar terms).”

“Over the last ten years, I’ve had shares in 5 and 10% amounts in horses and it’s very fun to own horses. Now I get to offer that fun to more people and give them a form of entertainment.”

Majority stay in the racing industry

With an increased emphasis in society on horse welfare, MyRacehorse’s audit of their transitioned horses outlines how is it possible for racing authorities and horse owners to track their horses after they are sold into a new career. It also shows that the majority of horses sold by MyRacehorse (85%) are staying in the racing industry, either as racehorses or broodmares.

“Back to welfare, we genuinely want to make a difference in welfare. We all love our horses. The reason people come back to ownership again and again is that they love the horse, and like any decent human, our owners want to do the right thing.

“A lot of what we’ve found (in doing this annual audit) and touching base with people who own our horses in the next phases of their lives is that people are all doing the right thing. It shows that the industry is a way of life for everyone. It’s important to show the rest of the world that people care for their horses.”

“Obviously what we are doing with the Super Fund and the public tracking is about transparency for our horses’ long term. For us, it doesn’t matter if it’s our pricing model or welfare or any other factor in our business, we believe that being transparent is about building trust. And trust is the whole basis for our business.”

Tracing retired horses takes time and effort and a network of people. MyRacehorse have shown that it is possible to commit the expense to make lifetime traceability possible.