Horse Euthanized at Del Mar

Well this sucks. Runforthemoney was euthanized at Del Mar after fracturing a sesmoid bone, while running on the polytrack.

I hate seeing horse euthanized, however it happens. It’s part of life. What annoys me — is like global warming — we have wasted millions of dollars on these polytrack (and cushion track) installations, only to find they are not much — if any — better. In the case of Santa Anita, they were worse. I have lost count of the racing days lost at SA due to the Cushion Track install.

Few are willing to step out and be honest about the polytrack, and cushion track installs.

The media is hyping up the installs, Del Mar’s Polytrack garners positive reviews. Keep in mind that ESPN is a very liberal company and will push the agenda of the left — as in radical groups like PETA — in the face of facts. I will say that the Del Mar folks are doing a far better job at it than most. It’s still a waste of money.

Some agree with me.

Look, I’m as concerned as the next person when it comes to horse safety in the wake of Barbaro and Eight Belles at Triple Crown venues on traditional dirt surfaces, but the rush to artificial surfaces has been somewhat disconcerting to me. Why wasn’t more effort put into solving some of the issues regarding the old-fashioned dirt tracks and making them safer if all this money was going to be thrown into the artificial surfaces pot?

The reason is that many want easy answers, that can be shown to work right now. The horse industry lacks leadership, and the medias are agenda driven and wants something done right now. No matter that what is being done is untested and may in fact worsen the situation. Do something now is the cry.

Well bad news folks, it’s not working. We need fewer racing days, and races for 2 year olds should not occur until late in the year. That won’t happen until the fake-track failure is clear.

That’s a point Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito has pointedly made, and it makes plenty of sense to traditionalists like me. From this standpoint, the jury is still out on research regarding the effect of the synthetics on overall safety. It’s been generally favorable regarding catastrophic breakdowns, but far from earth-shattering in terms of routine injuries.

At Turfway Park there has been virtually no noticeable change in the breakdown rate. During a four-week meet in 2004, Turfway’s last season before Polytrack, there were four breakdowns. In the past three years, the track recorded three, six and four fatalities during racing on the artificial surface.

The tracks is also more difficult to maintain, ask Santa Anita

Meanwhile, Del Mar saw a substantial drop from eight to two fatalities in last year’s 43-day meeting, and Keeneland has had no fatal breakdowns the past two Spring meetings. One recent national survey’s statistics showed that there have been 1.47 fatalities per 1,000 synthetic track starts compared to 2.03 per 1,000 on dirt tracks over a similar period.

It would seem that number will be surpassed this year, as the first week of racing has just concluded. We have six more to go.

The problem is pressure groups like PETA aided and abetted by ESPN, and the main-stream media.

Those are encouraging numbers, but we also must temper our enthusiasm under the umbrella of a widely accepted caveat that breeding is as much a culprit as any more tangible factor such as track composition. PETA people could use a little education in that department.

They could use an education in a lot of areas. It will take fundamental change in the way racing is handled to stop the break downs.