Industry Notice- Horse Database Updates

Harness Racing Australia (HRA) will shortly be conducting some automated updates to horses deemed Inactive on the HRA databases, giving them a status of Retired or Deceased.

In this instance, the term Inactive means the horse has not raced, trialled, bred or been transferred within a set period of time. These time periods differ slightly depending on the horse’s age and gender and the status potentially being assigned to it. The timelines are designed to primarily capture horses that are genuinely no longer active in the industry but the connections have not given formal notice about. Most of these will likely be historical updates where contact with that horse’s connections has been unsuccessful.

If you have a horse that may technically fit the term Inactive as described above but is not actually Retired or Deceased HRA encourages you to ensure that you process a Status Update on HarnessWeb for that horse prior to 30th November 2022. For example perhaps you have a horse on an extended spell that you intend to return to racing or a broodmare who has not foaled for several years but you will be breeding with this season, selecting statuses such as Spelling, In Training or ensuring any breeding stock are notified as Retired from Racing will ensure these horses are not inadvertently Retired from Racing and Breeding. Reinstatement is possible for accidental Retirements however prevention is always better than cure.

It is timely to also remind all participants of the incoming rule changes that will shorten the timelines associated with notification of retirement and death and will also require updates any time a horse changes location (e.g. spelling, breaking, pre training) more information on this can be found here.