I’m a lurker here – usually I’m on the Driving forum. For some time I’ve been following discussions on this board regarding race track safety, and I’d be interested in your thoughts on this article, which appeared in newspapers all over the country. In some it was in the sports section; in our local Clarion Ledger it was in the A section:
AP: 5,000 horse deaths since 2003
Associated Press
Article Launched: 06/15/2008 01:37:15 AM PDT
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Thoroughbred racetracks in the United States reported more than three horse deaths a day last year and 5,000 since 2003, and the vast majority were put down after suffering devastating injuries on the track, according to an Associated Press survey.
Countless other deaths went unreported because of lax record-keeping, the AP found in the broadest such review to date.
The catastrophic breakdown of filly Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby last month made the fragility of a half-ton horse vivid for the millions watching, but the AP found that such injuries occur regularly in every racing state. Tracks in California and New York, which rank first and sixth in thoroughbred races, combine to average more than one thoroughbred death for every day of the year.
Questions about breeding, medication, synthetic surfaces vs. dirt and other safety issues have dogged the industry for some time, and a congressional panel has asked key players in the sport to testify this week about its direction, particularly the influence of steroids.
The AP compiled its figures from responses to open-records inquiries sent to the organizations that govern the sport in the 29 states identified by Equibase Co., a clearinghouse for race results, as having had at least 1,000 thoroughbreds start a race last year. Arkansas, Michigan and Nebraska said their organizations don’t track fatalities, and only one of Florida’s three main thoroughbred tracks provided numbers.
There were wide differences among the other states in what types of deaths are monitored and how far back records go.
“Nobody really knows how big of a problem it is,” said Rick Arthur, California’s equine medical director. “They just know it’s a big problem.”
California officials became alarmed in 2005 when the number of thoroughbred racing deaths spiked by nearly 50 percent from just two years earlier. Last year, 314 horses - 261 of them thoroughbreds - died at California’s tracks, including those hurt in training or barn accidents, and a few that suffered other injuries or medical complications.
“Just seeing the totals and the recurrent theme, it’s eye-opening,” said Bon Smith, assistant director of the California Horse Racing Board.
Beginning this year, California has mandated that all its major tracks replace their dirt surface with a synthetic mixture found in some studies to be safer for horses and jockeys.
While California’s thoroughbred fatalities are nearly triple those reported by any other state, its warm weather and bounty of tracks make it the nation’s busiest racing state. And it has received high praise across the industry for the way it tracks deaths; every death that occurs on the public grounds of a California racetrack is recorded in detail, largely through veterinary reports.
Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas said the sport gets a bad rap for what he believes it does best - take care of the animals.
“There isn’t a trainer worth his salt that doesn’t look into this 24 hours a day,” Lukas said. “I’ll guarantee you that if any one of those purists who feel like it’s an abusive sport would spend two weeks in my barn, they’d walk away a different person and have a greater appreciation for the care. Animals don’t have a say in it, but when they get to this level, they have a pretty good deal going.”
But, although 3/day sounds like a lot, how does that compare with other disciplines and just horses in the pasture?