Greyhound Welfare in UK Racing: Injury Data, Rehoming Rates and Regulation

UK Greyhound Welfare by the Numbers: Progress and Ongoing Debate

Greyhound welfare in UK racing is a subject that generates strong opinions on both sides. The industry points to falling injury rates, rising rehoming figures and increased investment in kennel standards. Critics argue that the numbers, while improved, still represent an unacceptable level of harm inflicted on animals for the purposes of sport and gambling. Both sides cite data. The question is what the data actually shows, and whether the trajectory it describes is enough.

The most recent comprehensive figures, published by the GBGB in 2025 covering the 2024 racing year, show the injury rate across all licensed tracks at 1.07% — a record low since the board began publishing this data in 2018. That number, drawn from 355,682 individual runs and 3,809 recorded injuries, is the starting point for any informed conversation about greyhound welfare in UK racing. Whether it represents adequate progress depends on who you ask and what standard you apply.

Injury and Fatality Rates: 2018 to 2024

When the GBGB first published injury and retirement data in 2018, it was a deliberate act of transparency by a sport that had been criticised for operating behind closed doors. The figures gave campaigners and the public a baseline against which to measure progress — and they gave the industry itself a set of targets to improve on.

The trajectory since 2018 has been downward. The injury rate has fallen from higher levels to the current 1.07%, and the fatality rate — dogs that die on the track or are euthanised as a direct result of racing injuries — has halved, from 0.06% in 2020 to 0.03% in 2024. In absolute terms, the fatality rate means that roughly one in every three thousand racing starts results in a death on the track. That is a small percentage, but it is not zero, and in a sport that generates hundreds of thousands of starts per year, it translates into real numbers of real animals.

The most striking figure in the GBGB’s data concerns economic euthanasia — the practice of putting down a healthy greyhound because the owner or trainer deems it uneconomical to keep or rehome. In 2018, 175 greyhounds were euthanised for economic reasons across all GBGB tracks. By 2024, that number had fallen to three. GBGB Chief Executive Mark Bird has spoken directly about this reduction, stating that the board made clear that economic euthanasia was unacceptable and that the 98% reduction since 2018 is a source of particular pride for the sport.

The decline in economic euthanasia reflects a genuine cultural shift within the industry. Trainers and owners who once might have opted for euthanasia when a dog’s racing career ended now face regulatory pressure, public scrutiny and — importantly — a functional rehoming infrastructure that gives them a viable alternative. Whether the pressure came from within the sport or was imposed by external criticism is debatable. The outcome, in this case, is not.

Beyond the headline rates, the GBGB data breaks down injuries by type and severity. The majority of recorded injuries are minor — muscle strains, toe injuries, cut pads — that respond to rest and veterinary treatment. Serious injuries, including fractures and dislocations, account for a smaller proportion but attract the most scrutiny because they are the most likely to end a dog’s career or, in the worst cases, result in euthanasia on welfare grounds. The distinction between minor and serious injuries matters, because a blanket injury rate of 1.07% masks a significant range of outcomes within that number.

Rehoming Success and Retirement Pathways

Of the greyhounds that left racing in 2024, 94% — a total of 5,795 dogs — were successfully rehomed. That figure is up from 88% in 2018, and it represents the most visible measure of how the sport handles the transition from track to domestic life. Rehoming is managed through a network of charities, trusts and individual arrangements coordinated by trainers, tracks and the GBGB.

The Greyhound Trust is the largest dedicated rehoming organisation in the UK, operating branches across the country and working directly with licensed tracks to take in retired racers. Other organisations, including local breed-specific rescues and fosterers, handle dogs that the Trust cannot immediately accommodate. At tracks like Newcastle, the process typically begins when a trainer notifies the racing office that a dog is retiring. The track’s welfare officer then coordinates with the rehoming network to find a suitable placement.

Since the launch of the GBGB’s welfare strategy in 2022, routine kennel visits have increased by 73.2%, according to the board’s October 2025 progress report. These visits serve a dual purpose: they monitor the welfare of dogs currently in training and they ensure that trainers are meeting their obligations around retirement planning. The increased frequency of visits is part of a broader effort to make welfare oversight proactive rather than reactive — catching problems before they reach the point where rehoming becomes urgent or, worse, where a dog falls through the gaps entirely.

What Critics Say and How the Industry Responds

The improvements in injury rates, fatality rates and rehoming percentages have not silenced the sport’s critics. Organisations such as the Greyhound Trust itself — which operates within the industry but has been vocal about its expectations — have pointed to the gap between headline figures and the experience of individual dogs. Lisa Morris-Tomkins, Chief Executive of the Greyhound Trust, has stated that the number of racing greyhounds that never get the chance to find a loving home after their career ends remains unacceptable, and that baseline injury and rehoming figures still need improvement.

External campaign groups take a harder line. GREY2K USA Worldwide, which tracks global greyhound racing data, notes that between 2017 and 2024, a cumulative total of over 35,000 injuries and more than 1,300 fatalities were recorded on GBGB tracks, alongside over 3,200 dogs euthanised for reasons other than racing injuries. The cumulative framing is deliberate: it presents the toll of greyhound racing not as an annual snapshot but as a running total, and the numbers are large enough to unsettle even those sympathetic to the sport.

The industry’s response has been to emphasise trajectory over absolute numbers. GBGB argues that the direction of travel is consistently positive — fewer injuries, fewer deaths, more dogs rehomed, more money invested in welfare — and that the remaining gaps are being addressed through regulation, education and investment. The sport has also pointed to the Prohibition of Greyhound Racing (Wales) Bill, passed at Stage 1 in the Senedd in December 2025, as evidence that political pressure exists regardless of the data, and that the threat to the sport is as much ideological as it is empirical.

For anyone following greyhound welfare in UK racing, the honest assessment is that both sides have legitimate points. The data does show improvement. The data also shows that injuries and deaths continue to occur. Whether the current rate of harm is acceptable is a question that statistics can inform but not answer — it depends on where you draw the line, and reasonable people draw it in different places.