Fundamental Realities of Horse Racing Safety
Millions of horse racing fans including owners and breeders applaud the major advancements in safety over the last five or ten years. Those reading the recent media headlines might ask, what advances in safety? However, those paying close attention know there have been significant improvements in recent years.
Let’s clear up some myths. 1) Virtually everyone is interested in improving safety. Those who submit guest columns at Bloodhorse and The Paulick Report that assail the motives of active racing participants as being against safety measures are mostly self-serving. 2) The onset of authority granted to HISA might already be creating false hopes. Another layer of bureaucracy governing all racing safety efforts may or may not contribute to additional safety gains.
In the wake of an outsized number of injuries at Churchill Downs during the current racing meet, where do these recent safety improvements leave us? Let us point directly at the elephant in the room. Racehorses are inherently fragile. Anyone who has ever owned, bred, trained, or raced them knows this is a daunting fact, not an opinion. A mere glance at the body shape of racehorses tells an obvious story. Narrow spindly legs support large muscular torsos of fast-moving athletes. Despite the very best efforts by knowledgeable, caring trainers and vets, fatalities based on severe leg injuries can be significantly reduced, but they can never be eliminated. Spikes are inevitable as a function of mere chance.
Of course, there are grey areas if one considers therapeutic treatments available to trainers and vets. The judicious use of anti-inflammatories seems reasonable. The overuse of anti-inflammatory substances can lead to problems. How can the line be drawn that properly divides “judicious” use versus the “overuse” of anti-inflammatories? Reasonable people can disagree on this subtlety without challenging each other’s motives on safety.
In claiming horses, especially older claiming horses, regulating anti-inflammatory substances is a critical question, since a huge percentage of these equine athletes would need to be retired without varying uses of anti-inflammatories between races. Inflammation and racing go hand in hand, just as it does with all other forms of vigorous athletic competition. The difference being that horses are particularly vulnerable due to the unique nature of their physiques.
What are we to make of all these medication violations in terms of post-race testing? History teaches us that overages in these tests resulting in fines and suspensions have become a matter of routine. The likes of Todd Pletcher, Bill Mott, Bob Baffert, John Sadler, Doug O’Neill, Shug McGaughey, Carla Gaines, Linda Rice, and even all-time winning trainer Steve Asmussen, have all been repeatedly fined and/or suspended for medication violations. While Baffert has been the media whipping boy recently, it would seem that Todd Pletcher has more violations being announced now.
Are we to believe all these men and women constantly engage in PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUG schemes to get an unfair edge at the horse’s expense? Or alternatively, are these people simply trying to use the efficacy of basic therapeutics to help their athletes with routine inflammation? For HISA to set down roots and consolidate dictatorial powers, it must be identified as being the only "good guy" in the process. Its very existence is based on a grossly false presumption.
Perhaps many trainers are falling prey to the fact that horses are not robots. Some animals simply metabolize anti-inflammatories faster than others, who leave a few extra picogram traces of these agents in their bloodstreams on race day.
The spate of public pronouncements about new racing surface investigations aside, everyone should be forced to concede the reality of inherent dangers before engaging in forms of posturing for the purpose of staking out positions sure to be received favorably by casual observers of racing and Washington politicians who are comfortable with establishing powerful new racing bureaucracies and calling it a day.
The behavior of Churchill Downs in early May was particularly instructive regarding the plethora of moving parts and conflicting incentives involved in horse safety. Consider the unilateral decision by a regulatory vet, in the wake of spike in equine fatalities at Churchill, to scratch Forte. Forte is an Eclipse Award winning three-year-old colt who is already worth roughly $20-25 million if not more. Yet after galloping in preparation for the Kentucky Derby, under the watchful eye of his Eclipse Award winning trainer and a team of vets who all deemed him to be sound, the regulatory vet over-ruled the entire team and Forte was tossed out of the race and kept out of the Preakness for technical reasons associated with the vet scratch.
The mission was accomplished fair or unfair, it was a public relations win for Churchill proving they really and truly “care.” The Forte team was the recipient of all doubts that were cast, and Churchill racing re-established its virtue for a few days.
Use of the term “safety” in the effort to attain higher virtue is very powerful. Anyone exploring the incentives embedded in the employment conditions of a regulatory vet, versus incentives of a private vet in charge of protecting Forte, runs the risk of being anti-safety, instead of a being a rational caring individual who loves horses.
Those of us who have bred and raced thoroughbreds recognize the shell game that was played on derby day. Because of the conflicting incentives associated with these two types of vets, you have an unspoken problem here that leaves the door wide open for public relations-related solutions, including dubious sweeping authority being granted to a “third-party” vet, simply because of more deep concerns for “safety” issues held by those who do not provide hands on care for horses every single day. The unilateral scratch of Forte, by a seemingly independent third party, was most likely the result of Churchill Downs facing enormous public relation media pressures on high-profile derby week. This easily explains the choreographed filming of the independent scratching of the horse.
Though it is a patently false assumption, for illustrative purposes, let’s assume that Todd Pletcher and his team and ownership connections are reckless mercenaries who care very little about the animals under their care, versus themselves. Would their collective decision be to risk the loss of a $20-25 million future Eclipse champion stallion, for the relative chicken feed of a Kentucky Derby purse? To assume this is possible, goes against logic and common sense. Yet the posturing of Churchill, in taking a unilateral action to protect Forte from his trainer and private vets, was the essence of message transmitted to the public.
Others submitting columns at Bloodhorse and elsewhere suggest that their highly valuable horses have also been pulled out of high-profile races over the objections of their own private vets when the media heat had been cranked up. The most recent Breeder’s Cup event is but one example.
Now we read where the racing surface at Churchill is being called into question. There is a pattern here producing at least eight fundamental truths regarding safety:
1. Horse racing is dangerous no matter how many track vets are given the authority to overrule private vets. Sound horses race on spindly legs and large torsos, no matter which vet is in charge, horses and riders are always at risk.
2. High-profile ultra-valuable horses provide a laboratory for understanding the subtle web of incentives in an industry under constant fire for “safety.” With these types of elite horses, the incentives all rest on their breeding careers. The financial incentives for owners to scratch greatly exceeds their incentives to run. Regulatory vets would be better off more carefully examining claimers under their watch instead of unilaterally choosing to protect heavily scrutinized horses like Forte.
3. When the never-ending reality of the dangers of racing re-appears during high-profile time frames like “derby week,” entities like Churchill Downs will be inevitably forced to turn up pressures to scratch merely for the appearance of a concern for safety. Not that Churchill is not concerned. It is. But the long list of examples of action taken for appearances should not go unnoticed.
4. The use of anti-inflammatory therapeutics is not being addressed fairly in the public discourse. The use of these therapeutics is quite legitimate. Overuse of any therapeutic substance becomes problematic. However, heavy-handed regulations including one-size-fits-all anti-inflammatory test result parameters, will not increase overall safety. Sore horses are more likely to deteriorate if inflammation is not treated due to the vagaries of metabolic processes and the fear of positive tests. This is the essence of the day-to-day training dilemma that gets grossly neglected in all discourse.
5. Perhaps it is time for all of us who love horses and racing, including those who view HISA as the ultimate step forward on safety, to concede that racing will always be quite risky. The pre-emptive actions by Churchill’s regulatory vets during derby week or the lack thereof since derby week, shines the light on public relations-related pressures that are irrelevant to safety. Recent moves to review equine fatalities at Churchill illustrate the circular nature of such pronouncements.
6. Trainers and their dedicated teams will always be the caregivers of horses on a day-to-day basis. That Churchill, NYRA, and the Stronach Group’s experience pressures coming from the media to “do more” are producing mostly superficial actions, not effective ones.
7. Since HISA is now the law of the land, let’s hope HISA can add something aside from what HISA already fundamentally brings to the table. Namely, HISA has significant incentives to actively justify itself, as being effective, even at the expense of others. Like all participants in the arena every day, HISA will find solutions to the spindly legs and heavy torsos of thoroughbreds, harder to identify than things that appear to be useful efforts, that are better described as mere illusions.
8. Perhaps constantly reminding all concerned that racing is inherently dangerous seems to be a much more obvious, honest, and forthright way to reduce the pointless gyrations we are seeing for public relations purposes. Repeating the obvious where horse racing safety issues are concerned is the elephant in the room.
Many of us quickly recognized Forte’s scratch situation for what it was. It never came close to honestly addressing the pressing problem racing faces each day. While honesty is always the best policy regarding the addressing of real risks and problem solving, unconvincing public relation machinations that serve very narrow purposes is what we get.
Forte and his connections became pawns. And the latest pawns are those dedicated professionals who maintain the racing surface at Churchill Downs. Churchill will move the balance of its current racing meet to Ellis Park which is simply another Churchill racing facility. Still, pawns are politically useful to many things except problem-solving. And the media, which partners with pawn users like Churchill, plays the game of obfuscation because they are "good partners," who above all else understand where the bread gets buttered.
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