Racing: Death of NZ horse Wheeler Fortune re-ignites campaign against jumps

South Australian sports minister Leon Bignell has used the death of an NZ-bred horse in Adelaide this weekend to push for a ban on jumps racing.

Five-year-old gelding Wheeler Fortune, trained by champion horseman John Wheeler, was involved in a fall in the Somerled Hurdles, when fellow contender Searaven fell at the final hurdle in the home straight.

Searaven regained his footing and galloped on, but he brought down Wheeler Fortune, which suffered a serious injury to a foreleg and had to be euthanased by course veterinarians, minutes after the race finished.

Jumps racing is "barbaric" and trainers and jockeys who are opposed to it should push for the sport to be banned "to save the reputation of horse racing in South Australia", said Bignell afterwards.

However, he said it was "up to the racing industry" to impose the ban.

"It's time for all the trainers and jockeys who are against jumps racing to speak up and have it banned," he said. "It's barbaric and it has no place in the 21st century.

"If the people who run horse racing in SA think this is a good look for racing, then they'll oversee the death of the sport overall."

The RSPCA, on Sunday, said it was the fourth fatality at Oakbank in the past six years, after a horse died in a trial race in 2014 and two horses were put down in 2012.

A further three horses died at Oakbank in the two years prior to 2012, RSPCA South Australia campaign co-ordinator Carolyn Jones said.

Late last year, a parliamentary committee recommended that jumps racing should not be banned and the issue "should not be revisited by Parliament for the next three years".

Oakbank Racing Chairman Barney Gask said members of that committee "spoke to all stakeholders and they saw fit for jumps racing to continue".

Greens MLC Tammy Franks still has a bill before state parliament to ban the style of racing.

Up to 50 members of the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses were to protest at Oakbank on Monday morning .

"Every time something like this happens, it just re-inforces that jumps racing can't be made safe," organiser Elio Celotto said.

"It just makes us more and more determined to bring this sport to an end."