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00:00The Jockey Club released its annual report from the equine injury database earlier this
00:18week.
00:19Once again, some very good news here.
00:21We want the number to be zero, but it's not going to be.
00:24So we take the lowest number that we can get.
00:26And it was this year 1.25 fatalities per 1,000 starts.
00:32Now to put that in perspective, that's a 10.1% decrease from last year.
00:37But even more pertinent, I think, Randy, is that when this started in 2009, the number
00:43was 2.0.
00:44That's a 37% decrease in the 14 years they've been keeping these records.
00:50And again, this is one of those areas where we like to fault racing when racing deserves
00:55fault.
00:56It's one of those areas where the sport is really getting its act together.
00:59These numbers go down every single year.
01:02And I think they're going to continue to go down.
01:04Promising news out of this.
01:05Yeah, as is usually the case, synthetic is at the very bottom as the safest surface,
01:11and then turf, and then dirt.
01:14But the dirt, notably, the dirt rate, the dirt fatality rate has dropped significantly
01:19from what it was, as you mentioned, you know, way back when.
01:23There's probably a lot of factors involved in that.
01:25But I think most important, we went through a pretty rough time in the mid 2000s.
01:32First of all, there was the Barbaro injury in 2006, that it did garner a lot of sympathy
01:39from sports fans in general, because of the way, you know, the ownership of Barbaro felt
01:44about the horse and the efforts that were made to save him.
01:47But it still spotlighted a, you know, major injury at the highest level of the sport.
01:55And then two years later, what happened to eight bells during the Kentucky Derby immediately
01:59after the Kentucky Derby really, really resonated with a lot of non sports fans.
02:05I remember being called to testify before the US House of Representatives in the subcommittee.
02:10I mean, the sport could not have been at a lower ebb at that point.
02:16And then the Santa Anita injuries that happened, the injury outbreak that happened not all
02:21that long ago.
02:23So I think what that has done is, even with maybe some people within the sport who were
02:30slow to embrace a major change and a major initiative for horse safety, I think those
02:36were real wake up calls coming in succession.
02:39And I think now you're getting a lot more cooperation and a lot more understanding from
02:45people throughout the sport that this is a big, big deal.
02:48I mean, this is actually threatening the very existence of the sport of thoroughbred racing
02:54if nothing was done about it.
02:56There's been a great emphasis, especially in Southern California, but elsewhere, too,
03:02on improved pre-race veterinary examinations.
03:07There's been medication overhauls that are continuing right now with HISA.
03:12There's been a huge initiative underway to improve the safety of dirt racing surfaces
03:18that horses run over.
03:19And I think the more we've learned about how to take care of those surfaces and make them
03:24safer, the better.
03:26So it's just a whole mixture of things, I think, Bill, that have gone into these numbers.
03:30And like you say, you're never going to do away with them completely, catastrophic injuries.
03:35Every time we have a show on ESPN, on NBC, we hold our breath until it's over.
03:44But it is going in the right direction, and it's fantastic news that these numbers are
03:49continuing to drop.
03:50Yeah, a couple other numbers from the study.
03:53Synthetic, as you mentioned, was the safest, 0.41.
03:56Turf was next at 0.99 and dirt at 1.44.
04:01They broke it down into the distances of races, for races that were eight furlongs
04:05or more, 0.86, from six to eight furlongs, 1.31, and less than six furlongs, 1.38.
04:13Another interesting thing I always find, the animal rights people often make the argument
04:19that you shouldn't race two-year-olds, that it's dangerous to race them, they're not fully
04:23developed.
04:24The numbers every year are counterargument to that, it flies right in the face of it.
04:30The safest racing was two-year-old racing at 0.98, for three-year-olds, 1.13, and then
04:35four-year-olds and up, 1.34.
04:38Randy, I also want to get into California and what you said.
04:43The two major California racetracks, Santa Anita and Del Mar, are really at the forefront
04:47of this.
04:48And you mentioned just the crisis that happened at Santa Anita.
04:53In 2019, that awful year where so many horses broke down and the animal rights activists
05:00and the media and some politicians were just breathing down Sandy's neck, we were actually
05:04wondering if racing was going to be barred in California because of that.
05:08That number was 3.01 in 2019, down to 0.63, well below the national average at Santa Anita.
05:18Del Mar's worst problems happened in 2016, when the number was 3.01, it was down to 0.56
05:28in 2022.
05:30So kudos to Santa Anita and Del Mar, and I think those are maybe good numbers for the
05:35rest of the industry to shoot for.
05:37You can do 0.63 and 0.56 at Del Mar, very comparable numbers.
05:42Can we do that throughout the industry?
05:44Hats off to California, they've really got a grasp of things out there and are getting
05:49things done.
05:50Yeah, I mean, I've got some very good friends that work in upper management at Santa Anita
05:55and I can tell you, I mean, I know you know, Bill, I'll tell everybody, I mean, almost
06:01every decision they make, there is a horse safety component to it now.
06:08You cannot have horse safety any higher in the forefront of the minds of track managers
06:14than you have right now at Santa Anita, and I assume it's the same at Del Mar.
06:19So I think that's largely behind that plummeting of numbers that you see at Santa Anita and
06:27Southern California in general, and it's something that the rest of the country can shoot for.
06:31But progress is being made, I think, across the board, and that's a very good thing.
06:36Yeah, as you mentioned, they canceled, I didn't remember if they announced it today, I guess
06:40they've canceled racing for Friday at Santa Anita.
06:42I mean, they get any kind of rain, they don't run.
06:45But also, Randy, the thing that they've done, I think, that has contributed so much is these
06:51veterinary checks that they do.
06:53And I was writing a story in 2022, I believe we talked about this on the show, that there
06:58were not one single fatality in a dirt race at Santa Anita of a breakdown, there was a
07:05heart attack or something like that.
07:07And everybody said the reason why is because we go over these horses with a fine-toothed
07:13comb, and if there's anything wrong with them, they are not allowed to run.
07:18Now, I realize some of the smaller tracks don't have the resources that Santa Anita
07:23has, the money to afford all these veterinarians or whatnot, but I think that all of racing
07:29needs to take a look at this.
07:31Do we need to have the same sort of, you know, should X, Y, Z downs be doing what Santa Anita
07:39and Del Mar, and again, Del Mar is doing.
07:42And again, maybe there is a cost aspect of it, but, you know, they have provided a blueprint
07:47for what to do here to keep racing as safe as possible.
07:51And I wish other tracks, more tracks would follow it.
07:53Yeah, would you ever have imagined a racetrack 25 years ago, canceling a car days in advance
08:01because of a forecast of two to three inches of rain?
08:05No, no, it was never even considered, right?
08:09Even in Southern California, which hardly ever gets rain like that until the last couple
08:13of years, you would never have even thought about it, right?
08:18And it doesn't, you know, it's come with a price.
08:21The field sizes at Santa Anita are smaller now than they used to be, and that obviously
08:27has to have an impact on the handle.
08:29But as part of that, I mean, we see this phenomenon, we've seen it in the past at racetracks.
08:35It's been going on as long as racing secretaries have been riding races.
08:40If you have a race that comes up, let's say an allowance race that comes up with four
08:45horses and a racing secretary really wants to card the race, they will do what is called
08:52hustling other horsemen to run horses in the race to fill it to a level at which they can
08:58actually be carded.
08:59So in the past, racing secretaries at Santa Anita, like everywhere else, would call trainers
09:04and say, hey, you know, what are you doing with such and such a horse?
09:07Can you help us out and run them in this allowance race?
09:09And the horse may or may not have been physically 100% ready to run in that race, but the trainers
09:18may have felt pressured because they have to ask the same racing secretaries for stall
09:22space the next year.
09:24So they feel pressured to cooperate as much as they can.
09:28And so to a certain extent, that practice has put some horses at risk running when they
09:34otherwise would not have been running and maybe weren't ready to run.
09:38They don't do that anymore at Santa Anita.
09:41And I think it's happened less and less often at other racetracks around the country as
09:45well.
09:46So as we said, a lot of things have gone into this.
09:50Hats off to racetrack managers around the country who are putting horse safety at the
09:56forefront of the decisions that they make.
09:58It'll be interesting to see what the effect of HIZA is now.
10:01I mean, we talk about HIZA and we have Lisa Lazarus on in just a bit as our Green Group
10:05guest of the week about, you know, the integrity issues.
10:07But let's not forget, you know, they are tackling issues of racetrack safety as well.
10:12Matter of fact, there's a story that broke yesterday that they are and she talks a little
10:16bit about this, that they are threatening to cut off Turf Paradise's right to send
10:22their signal out because they're not satisfied with some safety aspects at Turf Paradise.
10:28That's not to pick on just Turf Paradise.
10:30I'm sure there are other tracks that are having issues.
10:32But they basically said, you fix this or else.
10:36And that's not a component we've had in horse racing up until now.
10:40So with HIZA being responsible for so much of these safety issues in 2023, can we get
10:46that number down again?
10:47I bet you we will.