Banning racing

New Zealand will be banning greyhound racing. 

The Bill to formally end greyhound racing will be introduced to Parliament later this year. The public will be able to make submissions to the select committee as part of the process.

“It is important people get the opportunity to have their say. The decision to end greyhound racing was not one Cabinet took lightly. I acknowledge the impact that closing the industry will have on those involved.

“But globally the industry is winding down, with Tasmania recently announcing an end to greyhound racing. The bottom line is too many dogs continue to die and be seriously injured, and it is time to do the right thing,” says Mr Peters.

Ok. So the reason for banning greyhound racing is that too many dogs die and are seriously injured.

That is the basis for the ban, according to Minister Peters.

Let's go with that. 

I've asked my advisor about the rates of accident and death per racing start for greyhounds and horses.

Because we haven't banned horseracing. Indeed, we subsidise it. 

My advisor's answer, which presumably could be checked by someone with industry-knowledge:

Bottom line

Per start, a horse is more likely to die than a greyhound in racing, with the gap ranging from ~1.5× (NZ flat) to ~5× (Britain, all racing), and ~12× or more in jump racing. 

Greyhounds sustain more recorded race‑day “serious” injuries per 1,000 starts than Thoroughbreds in the datasets that exist, but those counts include categories (e.g., ≥22‑ or 43–90‑day stand‑downs) that don’t map cleanly onto how horse‑racing reports non‑fatal injuries. 

So on a first cut horses have a substantially higher risk of death per racing start than greyhounds have.

So if the government wanted to ban racing on basis of deaths, it should have started with horses.

Maybe there could be some CBA claiming a lot more benefits from horse racing per race as offset, or maybe people care more about dogs dying than about horses dying. 

But the simplest explanation here is probably the correct one.