AWSELFA is hosting its second member-only webinar of the year on Monday 22 June 2026 at 7.30pm (GMT+1). This is the second in a series of four webinars that AWSELFA will be hosting during 2026. 

AWSELFA are pleased to welcome Dr Euan Bennet, Lecturer in Research and Numerical Skills in the School of Biodiversity, One Health, and Veterinary Medicine at the University of Glasgow (and Treasurer of AWSELFA). Following Gold Dancer’s fatal injury at the Grand National Festival in April this year, the spotlight has been on the UK racing industry to try and prevent such accidents happening in the future and improve racehorse welfare. Using his own research Euan will discuss what he feels the racing industry needs to do to protect racehorse welfare. This promises to be a fascinating and thought-provoking session.

Find out more about Dr Euan Bennet:

Euan is Lecturer in Research and Numerical Skills in the School of Biodiversity, One Health, and Veterinary Medicine at the University of Glasgow. His research focus is primarily on understanding risk factors that affect horse and rider safety in equestrian sports and horse racing. He is the ‘go-to’ person internationally for data reconciliation and risk factor analysis in equine sports. His specialist niche is doing interesting stuff with data that organisations have collected and don’t know what to do with.

Euan has worked with equine sports governing bodies at national and international level, including the International Equestrian Federation (FEI), the US Jockey Club, Hong Kong Jockey Club, British Eventing, and Equestrian Australia. He has provided scientific evidence supporting policy and protocol that has contributed to measurable improvements to sports horse safety and welfare. Euan has pioneered the next generation of risk factor modelling for sports horses, by developing a holistic approach that integrates multiple datasets together from disparate sources – for example, combining competition data with veterinary history data and training records.  

Since 2020, Euan’s research has contributed directly to:

• A near-total rewrite of the international equestrian endurance rulebook, which brought about a positive step change in horse welfare across the sport;
• A 47% reduction in the incidence of catastrophic injuries among racehorses in North America in 2025 compared to 2009. This is equivalent to over 200 fewer horse fatalities in 2025 compared to 2009;
• Development of a ‘real time’ risk monitoring system implemented in Hong Kong racing, which identifies the horses most at risk of deleterious outcomes in time for the pre-race veterinary examinations;
• Identification of avoidable risk factors for horse falls in eventing, across several domains.

This webinar is free and exclusively available to AWSELFA members.

If you have not yet renewed your membership, now is the perfect time to do so. For just £25 per year, you will gain access to this event and a full programme of upcoming webinars and activities planned for the months ahead. More importantly, your membership supports our shared mission to advance animal welfare through education, research and advocacy. Please circulate this invitation to anyone keen to join a movement of people committed to improve the welfare of animals!