Improved safety for racehorses could be just around the corner thanks to new innovations in technology, but regulators are still learning how to harness that tech's power.
That's one takeaway from a panel at the recent 48th Annual Global Symposium on Racing, which was held in Tuscon, Ariz., last week. Panelists provided overviews of several new pieces of equipment that could improve on-track health and safety, including a dynamic face mask that could detect and pinpoint wind problems on-track, a robust heart monitoring and GPS system, and a sensor-based system that can pick up on gait asymmetry.
The piece of technology that generated the most discussion during the panel however was the StrideSafe system. This system has been used in New York racing under the direction of equine medical director Dr. Scott Palmer since summer 2021.
StrideSafe is a three-ounce device that can be mounted to a saddle towel and measures acceleration in three directions, and also measures concussion on front and hind limbs. When placed on a horse over time, it develops a sense of what constitutes “normal” movement for that horse and can issue flags – including yellow “caution” ratings and red “alert” ratings – when it detects significant changes from that individual's version of normal.
“It's not very common for a horse to put his foot in a hole,” said Dr. David Lambert, StrideSafe CEO. “They go on for seconds and seconds [after a stride change] … it's a protracted event when it actually happens.”
The device has been mounted on all starters in New York, generating data from 6,626 starts. Seventy percent of those generated green ratings indicating no problems, 18 percent generated yellow ratings, and 12 percent red. There were 20 fatal breakdowns during the StrideSafe trial period, of which 18 horses had a red rating in their final race, one had a yellow rating and one had a green.
Lambert praised the system for being able to correctly identify issues in 90 percent of fatal injuries from the 20 fatal breakdowns.
In the future, Lambert hopes StrideSafe could make “the catastrophic injury problem go away.”
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If you appreciate our work, you can support us by subscribing to our Patreon stream. Learn more.There are currently logistical challenges to its use, however. The use of the system in New York was observational and retrospective, meaning horses were not scratched from races based on the results. A red rating also may be (and in several example cases, was) generated within the racing event in which a horse broke down. This meant that on the plus side, it could clearly identify stride differences that a rider may not have been able to feel, but not always far enough in advance to allow for intervention.
A yellow or even red rating may indicate a horse has developed a physical problem, but it may not give the trainer and their veterinarian very specific information about where to look when they contemplate diagnostics. If a trainer receives a yellow rating on a horse who subsequently passes a veterinary exam, are they subject to liability if the horse continues working and suffers an injury later?
Dr. Will Farmer, equine medical director for Churchill Downs Inc., hopes an upcoming study on StrideSafe in Kentucky will help answer some of those questions.
“Studies that have been done in the past was to confirm that the reds were reds, looking back retrospectively and following racehorses,” said Farmer. “Our goal is to try to be proactive. When we get a flag that comes in, we want to be able to communicate that to the trainer to give them an opportunity.”
Farmer also expressed concern that StrideSafe could read “racing-sensitive issues” like a check or bump during a race as a stride departure that could result in a red flag. The planned 2023 study will help further differentiate the technology's feedback. It will also put the device into use during training, with the hope it can provide yellow or red flags before a catastrophic injury occurs under the strain of a race.
During the study period, Farmer said the state veterinarian will not have access to the StrideSafe data and CDI will not be forcing trainers to scratch based on the feedback from the system; at this stage it will instead serve as an informational tool.
“These horses are going through everyday scrutiny,” he said. “In Kentucky they have to have a private veterinary exam before they race, they have to have a regulatory veterinary exam the morning of and then a veterinary exam while they're on the racetrack, so there are multiple modalities they're going through to make sure there are no overt signs of unsoundness.”
Farmer understands that it may be difficult for a trainer to be told that sensors see something they don't. If StrideSafe continues to reliably identify horses with unseen problems, it may serve as a source of more information in the future as regulatory veterinarians conduct pre-race exams or post-claim soundness exams.
“I think there are some things that are beneficial to a trainer, to give some objectivity to some of the decisions that are made,” he said. “We're really excited to see the training aspects of [the device] too.”
Depending on the outcome of Churchill's study, Lambert said cost should not be a major challenge for widespread use of the system going forward – StrideSafe costs $35 per horse start to use, but owner Jim McIngvale's Runhappy Wellness Initiative has told StrideSafe it will subsidize the expense to racetracks in the device's early days.
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