Santa Anita- do you think somethings up?

[TCA_Arabians]

Love the suggestion for the evil plot to get the land. Great screenplay.

Odds are better for legislation or an initiative. Legislation that incorporates the proposed rules by the Racing Board would be the least onerous. Pointless - but it could pass. An initiative would be more problematic. It would be expensive and harder to change - depending on how it’s drafted.

Santa Anita and other tracks here advertise. They advertise a lot. IMHO - They need to use some of those advertising dollars to demonstrate that they’re being pro-active in addressing the deaths. It’s like inoculating the public a bit against the likelihood of the poor, pitiful horses ads that will come if there is an initiative. I’m just assuming that they’re already out in the legislature educating the elected officials there.

SA made some concessions to PETA to get that first quote into their initial release. Or, at least that’s my take. You can’t really appease zealots regardless of what you do. They’re now back for another bite and all bets are off. My take.

[Where_sMyWhite]

I know that not everyone likes Baffert but he’s still pointing Game Winner to the Santa Anita Derby this coming Saturday. Had a 6f breeze this morning.

Don’t envy Baffert making some of the choices he has to make. Sent Game Winner to Oaklawn when SA was closed. Game Winner finished 2nd in the 2nd division of he Rebel. Hope all horses come back safely.

Game Winner is still a good favorite on the KD trail. I might be thinking ship him to Keeneland and then on to CD. Maybe, I just don’t know and glad I’m not making those choices.

[Palm_Beach]

@Pronzini

I’m not Laurierace but how about my personal experience and that of friends and the trainers we’ve employed. I’ve won more than 10 races on synthetics but I’m not a fan. They work OK at Golden Gate because of climate. They were OK at Hollywood because of climate. They were a disaster at Santa Anita and Del Mar because of climate and environmental concerns.

There were some wild injuries that occurred when the synthetics either started to heat up or needed refreshing. Things like double bows, stifle fractures, shoulder injuries, hock injuries, rear end unsoundness of all shapes and sizes which racetrackers of decades experience had never seen before. I took to running mine barefoot to give some slide but my best runner still lost a year of her prime running because her stifles were inflamed.

I was lucky and she came back but I heard of plenty who didn’t. Bone heals but soft tissue tends not to which is what I think Laurierace is getting at. Also the synthetics certainly didn’t stop catastrophics. At best, the amount of breakdowns were less but not completely eliminated. The only thing they helped was the perception game. Instead of horses coming unbuckled in front of an audience, they would gimp back to the barn and either have to be euthanized later or end up having little or no servicable life. Same result and just as heartbreaking but not fodder for PETA. Some people consider that a plus but I think it is pretty cynical myself.

Again, you are speaking from personal experience and perception. Graham Motion chooses to train at Fair Hill mostly because he loves the surface, and he does not have the strange injuries you describe, despite both Golden Gate and Far Hill having the Tapeta surface. Maybe he’s just lucky. Keeneland’s fatality rate the last year they had synthetic was .33 - I think it was a record low. And what about Europe, which has almost all turf and synthetic? They are way safer than the tracks here. Newmarket is just about all all-weather for training surfaces. Numbers don’t lie. Your personal perception does not appear to apply to the rest of the world.

[Palm_Beach]

@Where'sMyWhite

PB, BTW, sometimes you have such a way with words. Bless your heart

Thank you honey! You do too.

If you want to insult me, insult me. Don’t be a coward and hide behind a “Bless your heart.” Or is it that you don’t have any factual information to use to make me wrong? So you just decide that an insult will suffice? Aren’t you clever! I’m waiting for anyone to come up with statistics or articles or anything to show that training on synthetic is harder on a horse than dirt. I’ve never come across one, and perception can frequently be wrong, especially negative perception. I will gladly read anything anyone wants to post, cuz heaven forbid I go around in public embarrassing myself with my error.

[Laurierace]

Do we really have to explain the difference in training over a surface and racing over a surface for everyone on this thread or just one? For the same reason we said it’s not the huge spike in racing fatalities that is as troubling as it is the huge spike in training fatalities because horses who are just training should never break down. Training and racing are not the same thing. Some trainers like to train in grassy fields along the side of the woods, doesn’t mean they want to race there. Hell Winx trains knee deep in the ocean, pretty sure her trainer doesn’t want to race her there. I am not going to dumb it down any further, if you don’t get it, I give up.

[TCA_Arabians]

And, in the bad news department… Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) is calling for a suspension of racing at SA until they figure out why the deaths have happened and Rep. Chu (D-CA) is calling for congressional hearings:

https://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-santa-anita-feinstein-suspension-races-20190402-story.html

[Pronzini]

https://thepressboxlts.com/opinion-santa-anita-situation-makes-me-sick-to-my-stomach/

[Big_Tag]

This has definitely reached the point of non-coincidental, right? I don’t follow TB racing enough to know for sure, but from a statistical standpoint this has to be unprecedented?

[ecpolo]

@Pronzini

https://thepressboxlts.com/opinion-santa-anita-situation-makes-me-sick-to-my-stomach/

I really liked this article. It does seem to me that this has been a PR bait and switch from the get go. The obvious fault is the track surface so they point fingers every which way, even towards issues I do personally think may have been contributing factors. That actually lessens the validity (to the general public) of the other factors, which is annoying to me as well. I agree that bisphosphonates should not be misused, and I have a hard time comprehending why so many owners and trainers choose to ignore the fact that lasix is a loop diuretic that causes calcium dumping. I will save that argument for the professionals, though, since I only deal with horses once they are finished with racing. Mine run for 7.5 minutes and do not bleed.

It is clear that the Stronach camp has a nonexistent or completely incapable PR team, which is frightening for people involved in a sport that is prone to such controversy. Hopefully this will change soon. In the current social climate it is much safer to admit fault and remedy it immediately, even to go overboard if needed. They should have cancelled the season and completely redone the track the minute it was apparent things were bad and the media got wind of this. Clearly nobody was thinking about the long term losses and widespread affects that this will have on everyone involved in racing.

[Palm_Beach]

@ecpolo

I have a hard time comprehending why so many owners and trainers choose to ignore the fact that lasix is a loop diuretic that causes calcium dumping. I will save that argument for the professionals, though, since I only deal with horses once they are finished with racing. Mine run for 7.5 minutes and do not bleed.

Lasix has been around for decades. There is absolutely no evidence that it compromises the bone - actually, the opposite. Plenty of evidence that it does not cause bone density loss or whatever it is that you are incorrectly alluding to.

[LaurieB]

@Pronzini

https://thepressboxlts.com/opinion-s…to-my-stomach/

That’s the best article I’ve read yet about this whole mess.

The way things have proceeded makes me wonder if Belinda Stonach is trying to get racing banned in CA so she can sell those properties for development without having to deal with any pushback.

[snaffle1987]

at this point I am assuming there may be other things being used that are not tested for or are used daily but pulled for testing purposes within an allotted time period. While it may be hearsay there is plenty of it on certain BNT’s in California from snake venom to synthetic morphine. No idea if it’s true or not but there is plenty of talk within the industry

We already know about the biophos. used in young sale horses and how it compromises bone, soundness, etc in the young horse and as they age. Those are known problems in the industry today and up until a week ago; sales companies just started doing something about it. All of this drug use is a product of the industry in its entirety. And everyone within it turns a blind eye to it like its an accepted practice. The sale industry for wanting muscled up/jacked up looking yearlings to sell and horses who haven’t even reached their 2 yr birthday blistering a 1/8 in 10 flat at the sales in the last 2 weeks when everyone knows that how fast a horse breezes an 1/8 at these sales isn’t exactly indicative of their talent. How many of them come out of these insanely fast breezes with soundness issues?

I saw a comment on facebook recently about it and how a few trainers opted to gallop their horses for the preview instead of work them. I watched some of the recordings. Their consignments looked great and you could see their stride and way of going very well instead of watching them run at 1 yr 10 months with their eyeballs popping out of their heads zig zagging, smacked a million times down the stretch to make them run as fast as they possibly could from the top of the stretch. I wouldn’t even call it a breeze. it was unskilled, pure chaos. And the industry wonders why it has soundness problems? Horses breaking down all over the country and piling up at Santa Anita.

Props to those that breed their own and do right by them. Don’t jack them up on steroids and whatever else is hidden in the cabinet. To those who don’t sell off to consign at the 2yr old in training sales (where they are not even 2) and running their legs off for the sake of a 10 flat time stamp.

We all know accidents happen. injuries happen. they happen with horses in peoples backyards everyday; including mine. When you have performance horses; things are bound to happen at some point. But the racing industry cannot continue to shake off these issues and I firmly believe that all the stress and medications that these youngsters are given for the sake of the sales ring (in MANY cases, not all) is part of the reason why we see the issues we do at the track.

I will note that Santa Anita’s downhill turf course has always scared me with its path over the dirt course. I am always amazed that there is not more soundness issues with that course as the horses go from running full-speed on turf over the soft dirt in a matter of strides. Its a drastic change in surface all of a sudden and the recent death that occurred in that very spot wouldn’t surprise me if it was just a really bad mis-step by the horse. its tragic

[Laurierace]

@LaurieB

That’s the best article I’ve read yet about this whole mess.

The way things have proceeded makes me wonder if Belinda Stonach is trying to get racing banned in CA so she can sell those properties for development without having to deal with any pushback.

I can possibly believe that Belinda is using this catastrophe to further an agenda she may have whether that be to soften racing’s image or sell SA to a developer. I won’t buy any theory that they created this mess to further an agenda however.
This exact scenario took place at SA in 1998 I believe It was when they had 28 horses die after historic rainfalls. The media wasn’t as prevalent then as it is now so most people never would have known unless they were involved in the industry. I don’t think they did much beside wait until next year when the rains were back in the normal level.

[Palm_Beach]

It could be that Santa Anita - or southern CA in general - is just not a good location for a safe tb racetrack. That would be a difficult pill to swallow for the CA horsemen. But synthetics were tried and they did not hold up. If these rains come along every so often and they can’t keep the fatality rate in line, then they should cancel racing and limit training. It’s a big risk that the government will step in and further legislate racing into a corner where it does not want to be, if racing cannot police itself.

[LaurieB]

@snaffle1987

at this point I am assuming there may be other things being used that are not tested for or are used daily but pulled for testing purposes within an allotted time period. While it may be hearsay there is plenty of it on certain BNT’s in California from snake venom to synthetic morphine. No idea if it’s true or not but there is plenty of talk within the industry

We already know about the biophos. used in young sale horses and how it compromises bone, soundness, etc in the young horse and as they age. Those are known problems in the industry today and up until a week ago; sales companies just started doing something about it. All of this drug use is a product of the industry in its entirety. And everyone within it turns a blind eye to it like its an accepted practice. The sale industry for wanting muscled up/jacked up looking yearlings to sell and horses who haven’t even reached their 2 yr birthday blistering a 1/8 in 10 flat at the sales in the last 2 weeks when everyone knows that how fast a horse breezes an 1/8 at these sales isn’t exactly indicative of their talent. How many of them come out of these insanely fast breezes with soundness issues?

I saw a comment on facebook recently about it and how a few trainers opted to gallop their horses for the preview instead of work them. I watched some of the recordings. Their consignments looked great and you could see their stride and way of going very well instead of watching them run at 1 yr 10 months with their eyeballs popping out of their heads zig zagging, smacked a million times down the stretch to make them run as fast as they possibly could from the top of the stretch. I wouldn’t even call it a breeze. it was unskilled, pure chaos. And the industry wonders why it has soundness problems? Horses breaking down all over the country and piling up at Santa Anita.

Props to those that breed their own and do right by them. Don’t jack them up on steroids and whatever else is hidden in the cabinet. To those who don’t sell off to consign at the 2yr old in training sales (where they are not even 2) and running their legs off for the sake of a 10 flat time stamp.

We all know accidents happen. injuries happen. they happen with horses in peoples backyards everyday; including mine. When you have performance horses; things are bound to happen at some point. But the racing industry cannot continue to shake off these issues and I firmly believe that all the stress and medications that these youngsters are given for the sake of the sales ring (in MANY cases, not all) is part of the reason why we see the issues we do at the track.

I will note that Santa Anita’s downhill turf course has always scared me with its path over the dirt course. I am always amazed that there is not more soundness issues with that course as the horses go from running full-speed on turf over the soft dirt in a matter of strides. Its a drastic change in surface all of a sudden and the recent death that occurred in that very spot wouldn’t surprise me if it was just a really bad mis-step by the horse. its tragic

Oh, Snaffle. Even when I agree with you in theory, I wonder why you keep trotting out the same old fallacies to make your points. Your posts would be so much more palatable if you stuck to using real facts.

[511]

@Laurierace

Negative 100,000,000. How could a developer influence breakdowns to this extent without anyone being able to trace anything?

I don’t know ‘how’ but Cal Tech is just down the road and there is a billion plus profit on the table. Right next to SA is the Westfield shopping center and not many people go to malls anymore I am sure it could be bought at a rock bottom price if SA goes down

It could be anything, a laser, an ultrasonic sound that horses can hear, and a small enough device that can be hidden and aimed aimed at a single horse running and enough power to startle them into breaking stride. How small have cameras gotten?

Every other possible non conspiracy cause is being explored, why not follow the money also?

[Where_sMyWhite]

@Big_Tag

This has definitely reached the point of non-coincidental, right? I don’t follow TB racing enough to know for sure, but from a statistical standpoint this has to be unprecedented?

Umm… not really unprecedented. In 2016, Del Mar was hit with 17 fatalities during their summer race meet and another 5 in the fall meet. Following the 2016 fall season, Del Mar did a “full renovation” of their track and changed procedures (don’t know what either of those consisted of).

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/sd-sp-santa-anita-horse-deaths-del-mar-20190306-story.html

The Pressbox article sure does make some valid points, some of which has been floating around in my head even before reading it.

While I think that some of the changes that have been suggested… no race day meds, better pre-training and pre-race screening, etc are a good idea, they don’t sit well with me for what has caused the spike in fatalities that SA has experienced during their current meet. Kinda like the illusionists… follow the misdirection instead of what’s really happening.

What I also think doesn’t help from the general public perspective (not that it excuses the breakdown spike) is a whole generation of people who don’t really understand livestock/large animals. Fluffy and Mopsy sleep on the bed and get the best of food. Beef, pork, etc come in heat wrapped packages with not a cow or pig in sight ever. Horses; they’re beautiful creatures with flowing manes and tails running through green fields.

Non-horse people don’t really understand the architectural marvel that is a horse’s leg and how fragile it can really be. No excuse for the breakdowns but certainly feeds into why the public buys into racing must stop…

I feel CA racing is in for a bumpy ride ahead. Depending on what happens, hate to see what might follow in FL and NY and KY. :eek:

[TCA_Arabians]

I thought that piece by McLean was well-written, compelling and damning of the industry. Everybody’s ox was gored.
For me, it was also educational. The part where he talked about Moore being brought in and only given a week. And, the questions he raised about how the track was treated underscored the possibility that SA should have and could have done more to fix the track. Course, we don’t know for sure.

As far as SAs pr people. There are several types of specialties in public relations. For SA - there is promo and crisis communications. Right now, they’re not doing so hot managing the crisis side. The story has gone national - likely international. Most of the stories, running here in the LA market , are not including a perspective that shores up SAs side of it. PETA is doing a better job of controlling the narrative. They are literally beating a dead horse to their advantage and advancing their agenda. SA invited PETA into the tent with that first release and they are not pissing out of the tent.

I’m a long-time horse owner whose only interest in racing has been watching the Triple Crown. I chose this forum here on COTH because I thought that there would be informed discussion by people who know about racing. I think I made a good choice. I’ve learned a lot from you guys. Thank you for the primer. You could dumb it down a bit - but I’m trying to keep up.

I can tell you this: If this story dominates the interviews and pre-race coverage at the Derby and folks show up with some sort of memorial ribbon for horses on their hats - racing is in more trouble.

5 - You need to be writing screenplays. And, I just have to ask: Why pi?

[511]

@TCA Arabians

5 - You need to be writing screenplays. And, I just have to ask: Why pi?

A tribute to Steven Hawking who died on pi day last year. I just have not gotten anything better to replace it with.
If you want to help with penning a screenplay I have a couple of pretty good twilight zone ish outlines rattling around in all the open space in my head.

The greed factor is my Occams razor for the breakdowns. Not likely, but the most simple answer. Someone with money is willing to kill a few dozen strangers colts to buy a large plot of very valuable land and the adjacent piece for a bargain price, and before anyone asks from my last post how a camera can hurt a horse - a camera cannot but if they can be miniaturized so can other devices that might.
To answer an earlier query… ‘They’ have not been able to trace it because they are not thinking out of the box and looking for it - others need to.
No one can be an expert in everything. I think horse loving bankers, realtors, investment managers and the like should be contacted to find out the underground buzz in their industries.
Something is up with this site (SA not COTH) and the people I would start with looking at are those making the most noise. PETA has no problem stealing pets off of porches and killing them, perhaps we should explore the spiderwebs of the connections of their contributors.

[TCA_Arabians]

Interesting 5, your idea is “Chinatown” with a horse twist. You can get Dunaway to play Stronach. I’d go with Chris Cooper to play Moore.

Now, since we’ve taken a tangent into math - let’s go with the theory of probabilities - it’s the track. But, it needs to be proven.