I’m on the fence here. I definitely think that something needs to be done after 19 horses die in a few months but I’m not sure the track is inherently unsafe.
This topic is also being discussed, at it were, in the Battle of Midway thread.
What I personally think is that minds far more knowledgeable than I are looking at the track to try to understand what the problem is and what potential impact of all the rain that Santa Anita has had this winter.
Since it sounds like you think that ‘something needs to be done’, what do you think that is? What would satisfy you that SA ‘did something’? Sounds to me like SA isn’t just sitting idly by while fatalities occur.
They’ve flown people in from other parts of the country to help evaluate the track conditions, and made the recommended changes. What else do you think needs to be done? Please be specific.
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Nobody is ignoring the situation. Everything that track management can think of to do, is already being done.
What else do you think “needs to be done” that isn’t?
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I think they’re looking at the wrong end of the problem. Start looking in the barns, the drugs and medications, unsoundness, the warmups prior to breezing. Just because they’re at Santa Anita doesn’t mean every trainer sending horses to the track in the AM is a good-guy. Everyone in the H/J forum was surprised to see the vet reports on the Andrade horses up for auction. Imagine if the health binders on some of these horses were made public.
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Maybe I missed something but I thought the whole point of this issue is that they are having a strangely high number of break downs all of a sudden. Using your theory that would mean they would have a sudden change in horse management versus a change in footing being the issue.
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They are having historic rains. This is not a drug problem, that is ridiculous and insulting.
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but can they link “historic rains” to the horses breaking down. Yes, it causes/caused a distribution of the surface due to the rain washing the surface down. the surface is groomed regularly throughout the day at tracks like Santa Anita. The results of looking at the surface was basically inconclusive, so much so that even the officials involved hope to look towards the necropsy results in coming weeks and months to have a better understanding.
Isnt there already great suspect around the SA barns of substances being used that do not test? I recall seeing a lot of commentary on the bloodhorse comment section about that.
It would be ludacris to not review everything under the sun surrounding all of these fatalities. the drug use, steroids, “supplements” surrounding racing have long been a target of issue.
if the surface is that considerably affected by heavy rains then shut the track down or improve maintenance practices but so far, the review of the surface has not been considered a concern.
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Yes its historic numbers all of a sudden. but it would be interesting to see a report of all the fatalities over a timeline for the past year or so
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California necropsies every fatality and publishes the results for anyone to see. Have for decades.
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How do you know the results of the surface analysis that hasn’t even been completed fully yet? There is always great suspect about using stuff that doesn’t test, mainly because people are clueless and like to jump to conclusions without any basis in fact. How exactly are you going to review these “supplements” that are being secretly used if they are a secret? Not to mention every single drug given to every single horse is recorded and turned into the state vet on a daily basis. There is nothing to “investigate” because they already have the information in their hands just like they always have. Believe it or not, race horse people are among the best horsemen in the world and the last thing anyone wants is a breakdown. We literally spend every waking moment trying to make sure they are in the best health and condition possible as opposed to seeing how messed up we can get them without killing them.
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From a recent article in the LA Times:
“The number of fatalities at Santa Anita has more than doubled from an equivalent time last year.”
"According to the annual report of the California Horse Racing Board, racing fatalities have decreased 60% over the last 13 years, saying “much of that decrease in the last year alone.”
“Last year was an exceptionally safe year,” [Dr. Rick] Arthur said.
The entire article can be seen here: www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-santa-anita-horse-deaths-20190223-story.html
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This is my take on the situation:
Every. Single. Time. SoCal has unusual weather, this happens.
It would even happen with the synthetic surface.
Nothing in Southern California is equipped to handle excessive rainfall. They fight this battle every time they have a historically wet season, then subsequently forget it was a problem when the weather returns to normal.
Santa Anita is a leader in safety. Every time this happens, they take the problem seriously in an effort to keep horses safe. The only criticism I have is that they don’t seem to learn from history to be more proactive right from the start.
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I was alittle surprised by all the kinda negative tones toward my question coming on here today…when I said something needed to be done I meant all the track inspections and resurfacing they were already doing. As opposed to opening the track that one day they were supposed to close it. I guess I didn’t make it clear I was not blaming Santa Anita or any of the horse trainers. I don’t think anyone in this business is out to hurt horses. Just that something unusual was definitely going on.
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Are you talking about articles published by Bloodhorse or are you talking about the random commentary posted by whoever wants to say something. If the former, can you reference the article(s). If the later… you really consider comments posted by random members of the public to be of substantive value?
How do you know t hat all these other possible issues aren’t/haven’t been checked and evaluated?
Is Santa Anita perfect? No. Is horse racing perfect? No. Are there problematic trainers or training practices? Probably yes.
Do I think research needs to continue to help drive down the number of fatalities? Yes. Do I think fatalities will ever reach steady state 0? No. Do I think that overall racing is trying to become safer for both the horses and the people. Throwing around or supporting implications that there are problems IMO just fans flames that aren’t really there.
You should peruse the Equine Injury Database. It’s full of statistics and real data. Unless of course, you prefer to use the anonymous online commentary as your source of information.
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Most of the articles that talk about the fatalities also talk about the steps that track management has been taking to understand the situation and fix it.
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Good discussion on the Paulick Friday Show.
The comment section under Bloodhorse tends to be pretty ignorant. They literally don’t know what they are talking about but, it’s part of the modern scourge where my opinions become my facts, which are repeated over and over again by anonymous people on message boards.
I have a pretty jaundiced eye about some people in racing mainly because their records defy history. That said, anyone who thinks that Hollendorfer and Baffert would work some of their best horses on a “bad” track due to “greed” is just being willfully stubborn. These horses are worth millions of dollars and they are owned by wealthy people chasing history. Those trainers and others like them are perfectly able to stick a big horse on a plane and train somewhere else if they think there is a chance of losing their ticket to a big show because of a bad spot in the track. Insurance–if it exists because many are self insured–in no way will make up for that.
If disaster strikes when there is a lot of national talk about how bad the track is, that’s how you lose clients and no one wants to lose the kind of client who can buy an Instagrand or breed an American Pharaoh. Working their better horses this week was a true mark of faith in the efforts being taken by Santa Anita by people with real skin in the game.
I don’t know why it happened but weather is as good an explanation as any. Like most of life and horses, it’s probably more than one reason. I do think Santa Anita is to be commended for its response though.
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