Between four and eight harness racing ponies are destroyed each year with one stable alone believed to have put down four in the last 12 months.

A reliable source told The Royal Gazette yesterday: "Harness racing ponies are always being destroyed but you never hear anything about it.

"Annually, between four to eight ponies are destroyed because they haven't met expectations or nobody wants to buy them. Some ponies are put down simply because they didn't make good racing ponies.

"But the reality is that at the end of the day what we have are racing ponies which are either going to race or not. It's just the way it is and if you have hunting dogs that don't hunt, then they are no longer any good to you."

However, those ponies serving a one-year ban imposed recently for failing random drug tests will not be destroyed, according to the same source.

Fears were raised earlier in the week that owners had considered putting down their animals as a means of cutting the significant costs of maintaining them amid a deepening economic downturn.

"I can assure you that no-one is going to be putting down any ponies. They will be okay," said the source.

Driving Horse and Pony Club (DHPC) drug laws stipulate that any driver or pony that breaks the rules is subjected to a 12-month ban from racing while owners are fined and all of their ponies prohibited from racing. And even if a banned owner sells a pony it is still required to serve out the full ban.

According to The Gazette source, those ponies which are currently banned could be back in action sometime during the next season which begins in October.

"A year does sound like a lot. But it really isn't because we only race four months of the year. They are only going to miss a season which is four months and after that they should be okay," he added.

According to top veterinarian Dr. Dane Coombs, who has lectured at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad, in most cases in the US harness racing ponies are destroyed due to "catastrophic" injuries.

"Putting a horse down because it's athletic capability is no longer up to par isn't something that is usually done in places where I have worked before. But sometimes horses are put down because of catastrophic injury which is the number one reason in the US. They get an injury while on the track and it then becomes inhumane to keep them alive," he explained.

"Then there are times when you will have ponies put down because there is no expertise to treat them which you see happening in a lot of jurisdictions in the West Indies where they don't have the facilities to help remedy the situation.

"I'm not familiar with practices here but in jurisdictions where I have worked you don't find too many people putting down horses simply because they become tired of them."