Screen, Scan, Save: Is This Racing’s Big Fix?

Like the wildfires fanned by this summer's hot winds, doomsday predictions of horse racing's demise have raged through the mainstream and trade press this year, fueled by a sickening spate of high-profile equine fatalities on the sport's highest-profile stages–tracks armed with some of the most stringent safety guardrails.

This means these horses passed before the eyes of a slew of experts–from the riders to the trainers to the veterinarians and the regulators–deemed among the best in the business. If they can't single out these horses before catastrophe happens, who can?

As the science around racehorse injury has evolved, the notion of a random “bad step” as the cause of catastrophic breakdowns has been largely debunked. Much cited since, a California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) led study from between 2011 and 2013 found that roughly 90% of Thoroughbreds that suffered catastrophic musculoskeletal injuries had pre-existing bone lesions near or at the site of the fracture.

The problem is, these lesions–abnormalities of the bone as it undergoes remodelling leaving that part of the skeleton vulnerable to fracture–can be a clinical nightmare to detect through the usual means. Think X-rays, nuclear scintigraphy, or just jogging the horse up and down a flat path. So, what to do?

Catastrophic injuries don't just happen overnight. The pathology underlying these events can occur over weeks, if not months, leading up to the fracture. Perversely, this is good news. There's a window for intervention, opening the door to a new breed of screening tools.

Much focus these past couple of years has been placed on a biometric sensor called StrideSAFE, which appears able to identify that small percentage of at-risk horses who are sound to the human eye. The New York State Gaming Commission equine medical director has called it “probably one of the most important contributions to the Thoroughbred horse industry that has ever been made.”

What's more, a new wave of imaging technologies are proving capable of diagnosing the underlying cause of these problems much earlier than ever before. Some of the industry's brightest minds say the trick to substantially reducing equine fatalities will be to standardize the combined use of these screening and diagnostic tools, bringing much needed objectivity to what–in identifying lameness–is all too often an exercise in subjectivity.

Easier said than done.

Logistical hurdles, significant costs and legitimate concerns about exactly how all this new information will be used present no small set of obstacles. But the imperative is clear, warn various industry leaders: If the sport doesn't act on these tools that it has at its disposal–and act quickly–racing could all too soon become an anachronism.

“This is the new frontier of racehorse safety,” said Jeff Blea, CHRB equine medical director. As an example, he highlighted Sleip, a smartphone app that has potential to work as a lameness diagnostic tool.

“StrideSAFE is the best screening tool we've ever had–clearly it's a lot more effective than the human eye,” said Warwick Bayly, professor of equine medicine in the department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences at Washington State University.

When it comes to integrating such screening tools into the daily furniture of the industry, Bayly was adamant. “We've got to do this.”

Positron Emission Tomography (MILE-PET) unit | courtesy Mathieu Spriet

 

“We cannot scan all horses to identify those four percent”

“It's got to the point where now it's more than a diagnostic tool,” said Mathieu Spriet, of the Positron Emission Tomography (MILE-PET) unit. “It is helpful as a clearance to race. It can help the regulatory vet by not scratching unnecessary horses. And it can help individual horses.”

The portable PET unit is the brainchild of Spriet, and has been a part of the diagnostic scene at Santa Anita since the end of 2019. Since then, nine other PET units have been distributed to Florida, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. In about one month, the University of Melbourne is scheduled to join the list.

In its relatively short life-span, evidence strongly suggests that the PET unit is especially useful in diagnosing the sorts of fetlock injuries–those actively brewing in the sesamoid bones, and the distal region of the cannon bone immediately above the fetlock–earlier and with greater accuracy than has been the case with more established imaging technologies.

Why is this important? The fetlock has long been the Thoroughbred racehorse's Achilles heel. Fetlock failures constituted in California nearly 60% of all musculoskeletal injuries that proved fatal during the 2018-2019 fiscal year.

In this study, a team of experts examined the results of 33 horses imaged using both PET and nuclear scintigraphy. The researchers agreed on the results for the PET more frequently than for nuclear scintigraphy. Indeed, they detected potential sesamoid bone problems in 22.2% of limbs imaged with PET, but only 6.9% of limbs imaged with scintigraphy.

In another study of 25 racehorses, 88% of the PET scans performed six weeks apart identified the same problem areas in the fetlock, demonstrating the technology's reliability. In all, 65% of the fetlocks examined demonstrated improvement during a 12-week rest period from racing.

But when it comes to the bête noire of horse racing–those at-risk runners who show no clinical signs of lameness–the study with perhaps the most significance concerns the 72 “normal” horses chosen to undergo PET scans of all four fetlocks at Golden Gate Fields, Santa Anita and Fair Hill.

Three of the 72 horses were laid up as a result of what showed up on the scans, while about 20% of the horses examined saw their training schedules modified to manage small underlying issues.

“We had one horse that potentially needed surgery,” said Spriet, of one of the three ostensibly “normal” horses found to have major underlying issues. “We know that there are some horses out there, clinically they are fine, but unfortunately they do break down.”

As Ryan Carpenter, a private SoCal-based veterinarian and a habitual user of PET, puts it, “I don't think there's any modality that's superior to PET when it comes to identifying problems in the sesamoid bones early.”

But what about other vulnerable parts of the racehorse's skeleton?

The same year Santa Anita welcomed the bespoke PET unit, it opened its doors to a standing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) unit–a large, enclosed cell with dimensions of 10′ x 10′ x 30′.

MRI units, explained Carpenter, are especially adept at identifying issues in the lower ends (the condyles) of the cannon bone, including palmer osteochondral disease (POD), an all-too common degenerative bone problem in racehorses. “There's nothing better for POD than MRI,” he said.

For other notoriously vulnerable regions of the racehorse skeleton–like the shoulder region and the pelvis–Carpenter said that nuclear scintigraphy remains the go-to imaging modality.

There are drawbacks to MRI and PET. One is cost. A new PET unit will set you back some $600,000. Standing MRIs are typically leased from the manufacturer. According to Carpenter, the cost of scanning both front ankles with either PET or MRI is about $1,200.

Another is logistical. It takes between 45 minutes to an hour to scan both fetlocks with MRI.

“The knock on PET is that it requires a horse to go into an isolation period while it eliminates the radioactive isotope,” said Carpenter. The isolation time is about eight hours. “Here, they usually go over to the hospital for a PET at about five o'clock in the morning and they usually go back to the barn around two in the afternoon.”

Which leads to another imaging tool, computerized tomography (CT). Indeed, Racing Victoria requires all international horses that race there, including Melbourne Cup nominees, to undergo CT scans.

“The biggest benefit of the CT is what? It's fast. You can CT an ankle in 17 seconds. And there is no holding period,” said Carpenter.

But CT also has its drawbacks. It has yet to prove itself accurate at pinpointing the more worrying active bone remodeling as early as PET and MRI, said Carpenter. That said, CT offers promise for a diagnostic learning curve, he added.

“I'm hopeful that with CT we can eventually pick up the change in pixels in the location of the bone change before fracturing,” said Carpenter. “If you can make that true, you can scan all four fetlocks, use radiomics to look for changes in pixel density, and do what we're doing now with PET but in a fraction of the time.”

Given his experiences over the past few years, is Carpenter surprised by the results of the PET study that found 4% of 72 clinically sound horses had injuries that required them to be rested for an extended period?

“I'm not surprised at all,” said Carpenter. “We know those horses exist. Our hardest struggle as clinicians is determining which horses they are.”

Given the costs and logistical difficulties associated with PET and MRI, however, “we cannot scan all horses to identify those four percent,” admitted Spriet. “It's just not practical.”

But what if there was another way to objectively sift through the population to identify that small percentage of at-risk horses? Dave Lambert, founder of StrideSAFE, believes he's got the answer.

This scan image is from a fetlock with a severe sesamoid injury. 3D MIP is “maximal intensity projection,” which is a true 3D rendering.

 

“This is exactly how the system was designed to work”

StrideSAFE is a discreet bio-metric sensor used on horses working or racing to capture a variety of measurements related to the horse's acceleration and deceleration, its up and down concussive movement, and its medial-lateral motion. In other words, the horse's movement from side to side.

In short, StrideSAFE has proven capable of detecting the sorts of subtle abnormalities in gait even the most seasoned trainers, veterinarians and exercise riders miss when watching horses jog up and down a path, or when taking them through their paces.

StrideSAFE originally worked on a traffic light system, with a green for all-clear, a yellow for caution, and a red for possible danger.

In a long-term study conducted on horses racing at New York Racing Association (NYRA) tracks, of the 20 horses that suffered fatal musculoskeletal injuries during the period of the trial, 18 of them had received a red rating in a race before suffering a catastrophic breakdown, said Lambert. One of the 20 had received a prior dark amber rating.

These red and dark amber ratings were issued in either the race immediately prior to the breakdown or else two or three races back, said Lambert, meaning StrideSAFE detected 90% of those horses that suffered a catastrophic injury sometimes weeks or even months in advance.

In total, about 15% of the horses involved in the study were red-flagged, said Lambert. Given how at that time there was still much to learn about StrideSAFE's efficacy, there was no coordinated system to funnel those red-flagged horses for follow-up diagnostics.

Since then, Lambert and his team have refined the system to what he calls a “risk factor calculation” from one to five. Five is the category in which a horse is most at risk of a fatal or career ending injury–nearly 300 times more likely than horses that fall within risk category one. In all, 73% of the horses fell within category one, the safest group.

David Lambert & trainer Dale Romans | StrideSAFE

Using data from the same 6,616 individual starts in the NYRA study, Lambert determined that about 5% of the horses studied–a number totaling 363 horses–fell within the risk category of five. That includes the same 20 horses that suffered catastrophic injuries, 18 of which were red-flagged in prior races.

If the other two fatally injured horses had worn StrideSAFE in high-speed workouts between races, would the sensor have picked up a problem? “We don't know for sure,” said Lambert. “But there's a good chance it would have.”

Interestingly, Lambert said that in general, the red-flagged horses raced back quicker than horses in safer categories. “These horses are sound and they're ready to race,” he said, “but they're sitting on a fracture.”

Earlier this year, StrideSAFE was used on horses racing at Churchill Downs's short Spring meet. All eight horses that suffered a fatal race-day musculoskeletal injury were carrying the technology.

Seven of the eight musculoskeletal cases showed abnormal sensor readings as soon as they left the starting gate, prompting Lambert to subsequently remark that “had the sensors been on the horses in prior races, they could have pointed to an issue the horse was having weeks or even months earlier.”

Unlike the NYRA study, at Churchill Downs there was a more coordinated system for following up with the trainers of flagged horses. StrideSAFE flagged two visibly sound horses that were subsequently sent for PET scans, revealing the beginnings of condylar fractures.

“This is exactly how the system was designed to work,” explained Lambert. “Screen every horse in a race, detect those at high risk, diagnose using modern technology and bring about a cure rather than suffer a fatality.”

But not every horse that's categorized as being at highest risk of injury harbors an underlying issue. And so, to refine the system even further–iron out the kinks–what would be the best application of StrideSAFE?

“If every horse in training wears it,” said Will Farmer, equine medical director for Churchill Downs.

“If every horse had this for every high-speed work and in every race, I think that would be the ultimate goal,” Farmer added. “Anytime that a horse reaches a high speed, and they have a sensor on their back, we would have such a complete picture, there would be multiple opportunities for veterinary intervention.”

A Steve Asmussen-trained worker equipped with StrideSafe | Holly Smith

The results from StrideSAFE present an interesting parallel with a recent study out of Tasmania, which found that horses will decrease their stride length in the weeks leading up to an injury.

Back in 2010, Tasracing partnered with Stridemaster, which had developed a biometric sensor technology, to provide a race-day timing system using GPS and motion sensor data. The original purpose was to provide information to share with the betting public.

“We said, 'hey, that looks like great data. Can we get a hold of it?'” said Chris Whitton, professor of equine medicine and surgery and head of the Equine Centre at the University of Melbourne.

Whitton and his fellow researchers reviewed the data from 584 different horses who made 5660 individual starts. They found a “marked rate of decline” in speed and stride length roughly six races prior to injury.

Going into the study, “I would have thought it was one or two races that they would start showing effects,” said Whitton. “Such a long period I thought was fascinating.”

The researchers also found that horses are especially vulnerable to injury early in their racing career. “The first and second race of a horse's career is actually quite a high risk,” said Whitton.

 

The Heart of the Problem

Fractured bones don't constitute the only cause of lost equine life on the track.

Though fairly rare, sudden cardiac deaths occur at a rate of one for every 8,789 starts racing, and one death for every 158,000 Thoroughbred training days, according to this CHRB report. But what exactly causes these events largely remains a matter of debate.

This well-considered study looked at post-mortem findings from 268 Thoroughbred racehorses that suffered exercise-related sudden deaths. Pathologists made a definite diagnosis in only 53% of cases, a presumptive diagnosis in 25% cases, while 22% of cases were left unexplained.

Which leads to another biometric sensor technology finding its niche in the sport from a company called Arioneo.

“In total, we are working globally with about 600 trainers and vets,” said Valentin Rapin, Arioneo's managing director. “In the U.S. it's really the beginning for us. We're working with about 40 trainers at the moment.”

Like StrideSAFE, Arionoe's Equimetre fits onto the horse's tack during exercise, sending information back to the user, who can view it on a user-friendly computer dashboard. Part of that data concerns the horse's stride length and stride frequency at all gaits, from walk to trot to gallop and workout.

But Arioneo's Equimetre–which costs about $190 a month per device–also monitors heart-rate, providing data that can be used to assess both performance and overall health, including whether the horse is experiencing physical pain or discomfort, said Rapin.

“We can also look at the level of effort the horse is reaching during exercise. Sometimes you will see some abnormally high level of heart rate during exercise, depending on the speed the horse is going. And you can also see some abnormal recovery data,” said Rapin.

If the heart-rate monitor sends out what amounts to red flags about the horse's heart health, an ECG electrocardiogram (ECG) monitor can be used to map a more sophisticated picture of the horse's heart rate and heart rhythm, to identify any possible underlying problems like arrhythmias.

Rapin highlighted a horse in Australia routinely equipped with the monitor until one day in a workout, its heart rate spiked unusually high. A subsequent ECG analysis of the horse prompted its retirement.

Cristobal Navas De Solis, assistant professor of cardiology/ultrasound and internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, is one of the researchers involved in an ongoing study using Equimetre on three-day-eventers during exercise.

The goal is to find out “which variables are more associated with injury or performance,” said Navas De Solis.

From a recent preliminary analysis of the first two years of data–involving 53 horses and 1,467 individual workouts–the researchers have identified several variables that appear to have some relevance on performance and injury: Heart rate and stride rate during the warm-up period, stride length at certain speeds, symmetry at trot, and heart rate recovery after a workout.

Navas De Solis sees early markers of injury as the “sport's holy grail,” and the standardization of screening tools like Arioneo and StrideSAFE in horse racing as “a big step forward in this direction.” He highlighted an Italian pre-screening program for human athletes that decreased sudden deaths by nearly 90% after implementation.

But he's also a pragmatist. To get to that stage, racing's leaders would need to agree upon a set of well-designed but probably expensive studies involving thousands of horses.

The ultimate program would be one that weeds out the most at-risk horses, and similarly ensures that perfectly healthy horses aren't excluded from competing via false positives.

“Having an arrhythmia during exercise doesn't necessarily mean that the horse or the athlete has a problem. From an arrhythmia standpoint, it's not an all or nothing. Some arrhythmias are okay during exercise and are not going to cause a problem to a horse,” Navas De Solis said.

A key question therefore, said Navas De Solis, is “how do we find the right balance between decreasing injury and not causing unjustified alarm?”

The Research Team at StrideSafe | StrideSafe

 

“Nothing that can't be solved”

For Farmer's vision of StrideSAFE being used on every horse that works to materialize, a key obstacle is one of logistics.

“Race days are very structured,” said Farmer, of its main use to date at Churchill Downs. “We know times. We know distance. We know horse names. We know everything we need to know days in advance.”

The organized chaos of a busy training morning–with hundreds of horses working, many simultaneously, from dozens of different barns–makes the practicalities of using StrideSAFE infinitely harder in comparison, said Farmer.

“Right now, the logistics of training are very challenging,” said Farmer. “When you collect that data, you then need to identify which horse that refers to. In the sensor design as of today, it's not geared for you to just put it on their back and go. But it's nothing that can't be solved.”

Lambert acknowledged these logistical hurdles but called it “simply a matter of money” to get fixed–at the same time, noting significant contributions already to StrideSAFE from Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale.

“The technology is all there, we even have the idea envisioned, we have planned it out in readiness,” Lambert said, adding that incorporating AI technologies to the mix could help reduce the current costs of $35 a day per horse.

These screening tools also raise other questions to grapple with. For one, who should have access to the data generated? Another is cultural–a sense among those in the industry forged on tradition and custom that these devices could unnecessarily handcuff a trainer.

“Regulations are not going to eliminate risk,” Eric Hamelback, CEO of the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA), at a town hall about StrideSAFE earlier this year. “And quite frankly, we don't want regulations to eliminate horsemanship.”

Proponents of StrideSAFE and Arioneo stress the ability of these technologies to complement the art of training, not to replace it.

“It's a tool that provides objective data, and the goal at the end is to combine the expertise of the trainer–who has all the knowledge and the feeling and the expertise about the horse–with the data to make it successful,” Rapin said.

That idea taps into what Mathieu Spriet means when he talks about “voluntary longitudinal follow up” with imaging devices like PET to make doubly-sure a horse is up to the rigors of training and racing. In other words, the more horses are scanned periodically, “I think the better that is for managing the career of a specific horse,” said Spriet.

“Connections can be like, 'well, this horse is doing well. But we have a big campaign ahead of him, so let's scan and see how it goes,'” Spriet added. “To me, this is the most exciting part of it because we can see things [you ordinarily couldn't] to better manage horses throughout their careers.”

Trainer Dan Blacker is representative of the new generation of conditioner who has embraced the imaging tools in Southern California. He said he's interested in the idea of using StrideSAFE on his horses. “For sure it's got a place,” he added. “If they bring it to California, I'm very willing to support it.”

Dan Blacker | Benoit

Interestingly, The Stronach Group is working on its own screening system which uses high-definition cameras to create detailed skeletal movement maps of horses.

But in the short-term, said Blacker, PET holds the potential to be a major “gamechanger” in the fight to reduce equine fatalities due to its accuracy and simplicity of understanding.

“The thing with the PET scan, it takes away the guess work. That's the one thing I want to get across to people in racing,” Blacker said. “It gives you a clear-cut answer to the question of whether you can keep racing or not. Once trainers nationally get to see that, you're going to see a lot of improvement.”

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StrideSAFE Town Hall in Kentucky: “This Could Be the Answer Horsemen Are looking For”

Last week, the research team associated with StrideSAFE–a biometric sensor mechanism capable of detecting minute changes in a horse's gait at high speed–announced that seven of eight horses that suffered catastrophic musculoskeletal cases at Churchill Downs during its most recent meet showed via post-race readouts abnormalities as soon as they left the starting gate.

In a nearly two-hour town hall Monday morning, StrideSAFE founder David Lambert and Churchill Downs equine medical director Will Farmer dug into the details, discussing the findings from an ongoing study in Kentucky and fielding questions from horsemen.

Eric Hamelback, CEO of the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA), kicked the town hall off by cautioning how fatal equine injuries can happen no matter the regulatory safety net in place.

“Regulations are not going to eliminate risk,” said Hamelback. “And quite frankly, we don't want regulations to eliminate horsemanship.”

Over the next two hours, Lambert made the case that StrideSAFE–which can pick up the sorts of very subtle lameness undetectable to the human eye that are significant enough to possibly cause major musculoskeletal failures at some point down the line–could, if utilized smartly, go a long way to reducing the number of horses injured on the track.

“I firmly believe the only way this problem is going to get solved is if we give the trainers the right kind of information and give it to them in time to give them a chance to do something,” he said, before alluding to the national attention focused on the recent spate of fatalities at Churchill Downs. As a result, the meet was transferred to Ellis Park.

“Right now, you guys are on a beating to nothing,” Lambert added.

As part of a study funded by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) and in tandem with Washington State University, StrideSAFE has been used on all horses that have raced during the Churchill Downs spring 2023 meet, which concludes this Sunday. It has also been used on a select number of horses breezing during the morning.

In all, researchers have collected information from 6,616 individual runs.

The information is organized like a traffic light. A result in the red means there is a potentially major problem and immediate scrutiny of the horse is needed. An amber result suggests a small amount of change in the gait, and cautions connections to be on the lookout. A green result means there is no change and no immediate concern.

According to Lambert, about 5% of the horses studied were given the highest risk red-flag rating. These horses, he added, were about 300 times more likely to suffer a fatal injury than a horse green flagged.

As to how the technology works, StrideSAFE is a wireless iPhone-shaped device that fits snugly into the saddle towel, and eight hundred times a second, it takes an assortment of measurements to capture in minute detail the movement of the horse at high speed.

These measurements include the horse's acceleration and deceleration, the up-and-down concussive movement of the horse, and its medial-lateral motion–what is, in other words, the horse's movement from side to side.

“That's 2,400 data points every second your horse is running or breezing, so this is a massive amount of brand-new information that nobody has ever [received] before,” said Lambert.

Sarah Andrew

To understand exactly how StrideSAFE identifies almost imperceptible signs of lameness, it helps to break a single stride into three distinct stages.

In the first phase of the gallop, the hindlimbs load and propel the horse forward. In the second, the horse shifts its weight toward the front, its forelimbs acting like shock absorbers. This is followed by the lynchpin of the equation: A period of suspension, a mere fraction of a second, when the horse is entirely airborne.

If that horse is suffering a physical ailment or injury, it cannot adjust its body to compensate when its feet are grounded. It can only do this in midair, rotating its spine and pelvis in preparation for a more comfortable landing. Imagine a racecar hurtling along at high speed, one of its bolts working loose.

“The horse does all kinds of things in the air, twisting and shaking and moving,” Lambert had previously explained to the TDN.

In Monday's town hall, Lambert singled out the story of a horse that finished fourth in a Grade I event and showed no visible signs of lameness afterwards. The horse subsequently broke down over a week later during training.

“That sensor is screaming that the horse is in trouble,” said Lambert, highlighting abnormalities in a readout of the horse's high-speed gait during the race.

The town hall proved contentious at times, with some of the attending horsemen–many of whose concerns were voiced by Hamelback–sharing their frustrations that last week's announcement by the StrideSAFE researchers might have given the impression to the layman public that trainers should have known beforehand their horses were at risk.

Lambert apologized about the framing of the press release, all the while stressing how StrideSAFE could be an invaluable tool to catch potential problems early. The trick, explained both Farmer and Lambert, is to pair the StrideSAFE technology with a diagnostic follow-up to pinpoint the site of any brewing issue.

“It's not a diagnostic tool, it's a screening tool,” said Lambert,

Three red-flagged horses were subsequently scanned using the new PET imaging unit at the Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Kentucky, according to Denise McSweeney, a co-investigator in the study.

Lambert also admitted that the information collected from StrideSAFE paints far from a complete picture.

Not all the horses given a high-risk red-flag designation will suffer a fatal injury, for example. That's because in part, the horse's stride can be affected by things like the motion of the jockey and by stumbles out of the gate.

Furthermore, “very occasionally, a green-flagged horse will go down,” said Lambert.

But the current inconsistencies in data interpretation are outweighed by the high rate at which the technology identifies potentially at-risk horses, he argued.

“If there's a chance you'll save a jockey from being paralyzed, it's worth doing,” said Lambert, adding how greater use of StrideSAFE would aid in researchers and clinicians getting a better baseline understanding of what the data means.

Attendees also raised data privacy concerns. According to Farmer, the study results are not shared with the KHRC. Rather, the information is sent to Washington State University, where Warwick Bayly is the lead investigator.

In certain cases, the panelists explained, researchers have followed up with the horse's connections directly.

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) is not affiliated with the program.

The ongoing Kentucky study marks just the latest StrideSAFE trial to show promising results.

Of the 20 horses that suffered fatal musculoskeletal injuries during the period of a trial involving the New York Racing Association (NYRA), 17 of them had received a red rating in a race before suffering a catastrophic breakdown. One of the 20 had received a prior dark amber rating.

“Really what my sensor is doing is helping horsemanship,” Lambert said on Monday. In racing's ongoing quest to reduce equine injury and harm, he added, “This could be the answer horsemen are looking for.”

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NYRA, StrideSAFE Sensor Technology Study Begins New Stage

Since last summer, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) has trialed on thousands of runners a discreet sensor technology capable of detecting minute changes in a horse's gait at high speed.

Called StrideSAFE, the biometric sensor mechanism slips into the saddle cloth and works like a traffic light signal, providing a green for all-clear, an amber for possible warning (light amber better than dark amber), and a red for possible danger.

The ultimate aim of StrideSAFE–a focus of discussion during the recent Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit–is to detect soundness problems undetectable to the naked eye before they turn potentially catastrophic. Nearly 6,500 races later, the results are in.

Of the 20 horses that suffered fatal musculoskeletal injuries during the period of the trial, 17 of them had received a red rating in a race before suffering a catastrophic breakdown. One of the 20 had received a prior dark amber rating.

Crucially, these red and dark amber ratings were issued in either the race immediately prior to the breakdown or else two or three races back.

Just from the results of this study, therefore, the StrideSAFE technology detected 90% of those horses that suffered a catastrophic injury, sometimes weeks or even months in advance.

“This is obviously a very important group for the trainers to be on top of,” said Dr. David Lambert, founder of StrideSAFE.

Which leads to the next step along the path–a comprehensive program to first identify and then properly manage and diagnose the most at-risk horses.

That's because the 17 horses fatally injured which had received a red rating in prior races were among hundreds of horses red flagged throughout the trial.

While some of these flagged horses are at higher risk of suffering a catastrophic breakdown, others are also more likely to suffer a non-lethal career-ending injury, while some are just slow or ill-disposed to trying, said Lambert. The trick will be to quickly and accurately identify each.

“At this point last year, we were just observing trying to figure out what this all means. Now we know enough to say that a [cautionary] alert means you've got to get the horse looked at,” said Dr. Scott Palmer, equine medical director for the New York State Gaming Commission, about a new trainer email alert system to be unveiled at Saratoga.

“That means we're not just going to look what happens anymore,” Palmer added.

Sarah Andrew

What is StrideSAFE?

This wireless iPhone-shaped device fits snugly into the saddle towel, and eight hundred times a second, it takes an assortment of measurements to capture in minute detail the movement of the horse at high speed.

These measurements include the horse's acceleration and deceleration, the up-and-down concussive movement of the horse, and its medial-lateral motion–what is, in other words, the horse's movement from side to side.

Ultimately, the sensors capture the sorts of high-speed lameness invisible to the naked eye but significant enough to cause major musculoskeletal failures at some point down the line–unless, of course, someone intervenes on the horse's behalf first.

To understand exactly how StrideSAFE identifies almost imperceptible signs of lameness, it helps to break a single stride into three distinct stages.

In the first phase of the gallop, the hindlimbs load and propel the horse forward. In the second, the horse shifts its weight toward the front, its forelimbs acting like shock absorbers. This is followed by the lynchpin of the equation: A period of suspension, a mere fraction of a second, when the horse is entirely airborne.

If that horse is suffering a physical ailment or injury, it cannot adjust its body to compensate when its feet are grounded. It can only do this in midair, rotating its spine and pelvis in preparation for a more comfortable landing.

Imagine a racecar hurtling along at high speed, one of its bolts working loose.

“The horse does all kinds of things in the air, twisting and shaking and moving,” Lambert had previously explained to the TDN.

Which leads to the next important question: How are the red, amber and green ratings calculated?

While some 151 subtle variables are measured within each stride, only 15 are vital to highlight the important differences between individual horses, said Lambert.

Put together, they create a basic standard running from 0 (which is the safest green rating) to greater than eight (which is at the red-hot end of the spectrum) against which all horses can be compared.

At the highest end of that spectrum–a standard deviation greater than eight–the findings were remarkable. Horses awarded this rating in a prior race were more than 50% likely to suffer a fatal injury in a subsequent race or breeze.

More broadly, of the 6,458 individual runs in the NYRA study, 74.5% were rated green, 6.6% were rated light amber, 5.5% were rated dark amber and 13.4% were rated red.

This means that 865 horses were red flagged–a relatively small percentage of the overall runners.

But given how these horses aren't visibly lame–and as such, are tough to diagnose if harboring an underlying physical issue–that's still a lot of horses to sift through in order to identify the few most likely to breakdown.

Sarah Andrew

Lambert developed this technology with Mikael Holmstroem, a Swedish Ph.D. with expertise in equine conformation and locomotion, and Kevin Donohue, Ph.D., professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Kentucky.

And so, Lambert and this team tweaked the algorithm to identify the most at-risk horses and shave off the horses in less immediate danger. In doing so, they zeroed in on 7.4% of the population.

“You find the pattern and then you direct the modeling,” explained Lambert. “And when we did that, we found that 40% improvement and got us down to around 7% without missing any of the [fatally injured horses].”

That's not to say the other red-flagged horses should be ignored, for the study proves how physical deterioration leading up to a catastrophic musculoskeletal injury is typically a long degenerative process over weeks and even months.

This tallies up with the scientific literature on fatal breakdowns which shows just how frequently pre-existing lesions appear at the actual site of the injury.

“This is not a case of them being sound one moment and broken the next. This process is a continuum,” said Lambert. “It's not reliable as a soundness screen,” he added, “it's intended as a breakdown screen.”

Of all the horses that received a green rating during the NYRA study, 77% were racing again in less than 60 days, and 85% were racing again in less than 120 days.

That same study hasn't yet been done for red-flagged horses, says Lambert. But an analysis at the start of the program found that only about 40% of the horses that had a red classification were able to race at all over the next four months after the analyzed race.

This means that once a horse has received a cautionary flag, there needs to be a process in place to funnel it toward the right tool to diagnose the brewing issue.

“The analogy is the check engine light in your car,” said Palmer, agreeing with Lambert. “When that check engine light goes on, what does it mean? It means you've got to get someone to check your car.”

Sarah Andrew

According to Palmer, he and the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association (NYTHA) have recently launched a new system at Saratoga whereby the trainer of a horse given a cautionary flag in a race subsequently receives an email alert, or what is coined an “advisory letter.”

“A [cautionary] alert is not a 'Scarlet Letter'–it does not mean [the horse is] going to die or it's going to get a fracture,” said Palmer, about what such an email means. “The gist of it is, you need to get the horse examined by a veterinarian. That's the bottom line.”

Because StrideSAFE can detect lameness not visible to the naked eye, some of the brewing problems will only be detected using some of the more sensitive diagnostic technologies that are making their way onto the marketplace–but not always.

“Some of them [veterinarians and trainers] are going to be able to find something using flexion tests and usual diagnostic exams, hoof testers,” said Palmer. “These are not the sorts of things that are ordinarily done to a horse every day.”

Nevertheless, Palmer stresses that in the majority of cases, the added veterinary scrutiny will result in a diagnostic thumbs-up, calling it a “not one-size-fits-all” scenario.

“If it's a minor problem, the horse can get some time off, come back and everything's fine,” he said. “In some cases, I fully expect that we'll find nothing, and the horse will be able to go right back and race again.”

Given the work that lies ahead, NYTHA President Joe Appelbaum turned to a baseball analogy, describing the program at first or second innings.

“This is great,” said Appelbaum. “But we need as wide-ranging data set as we can find. We need to share that data and research it hard. We're at the beginning of this game, not the end.”

The post NYRA, StrideSAFE Sensor Technology Study Begins New Stage appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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‘We’ve Always Loved His Talent’: Silver State Turning To Gold For Asmussen

Two of the best horses developed by Steve Asmussen for Winchell Thoroughbreds came to the Hall of Fame trainer on the advice of David Lambert. Silver State hasn't reached championship status yet, but the 4-year-old son of Hard Spun continued his climb toward the top of the country's older two-turn division with a half-length victory in the $1 million Oaklawn Handicap (G2) last Saturday at Oaklawn under Ricardo Santana Jr.

The victory was the fifth consecutive for Silver State, who became the first horse to win the Oaklawn Handicap – Oaklawn's biggest prize for older two-turn runners – $150,000 Fifth Season Stakes at 1 mile and the $500,000 Essex Handicap at 1 1/16 miles. The latter two races, Jan. 23 and March 13, respectively, were major local steppingstones to the 1 1/8-mile Oaklawn Handicap.

Asmussen said on the recommendation of Lambert, a noted equine physiologist, Winchell Thoroughbreds (Ron and Joan Winchell) purchased Silver State for $450,000 at the 2018 Keeneland September Yearling Sales. Lambert, founder and president of Equine Analysis Systems in Midway, Ky., also steered the Winchells toward privately purchasing half-interest in Gun Runner and retaining homebred Untapable to race. Both became Eclipse Award winners.

Now, silver is turning to gold for the Winchells, who campaign Silver State with prominent Arkansas breeder/owner Willis Horton.

“It's a horse the Hortons and Winchells purchased on Dr. Lambert's advice, that has continued to develop and get better,” Asmussen said. “We've always loved his talent level.”

Silver State earned a preliminary Beyer Speed Figure of 101, equaling a career high, for his Oaklawn Handicap victory. After falling off the Kentucky Derby trail following a seventh-place finish in the $1 million Louisiana Derby (G2) in March 2020 at Fair Grounds, Silver State returned with two sharp allowance victories last fall in Kentucky before emerging as Oaklawn's top older two-turn runner this year. His Beyer Speed Figures, a numerical representation of performance, have ranged from 97 to 101, during the winning streak. Asmussen calls Silver State, “a gorgeous animal” who needed time to develop because he's “massive in size.”

“This race is significant enough,” Asmussen said. “He'll get the future we were hoping for, and this proves it.”

Asmussen said next-race plans are pending for Silver State, who won for the sixth time in 10 lifetime starts. Silver State ($1,230,094) became a millionaire after collecting the $600,000 winning check.

It was the first Oaklawn Handicap victory for Asmussen and the Winchells and the second for Horton, who also won the race in 2014 with champion Will Take Charge. Horton turned 81 last Saturday.

“The Hortons owning half this horse with the Winchells and how important Oaklawn is to them, the Hortons are to Oaklawn, what a great birthday present for him today,” Asmussen said.

The Oaklawn Handicap was Asmussen's record 95th Oaklawn stakes victory. Asmussen also won the $600,000 Apple Blossom Handicap (G1) for older fillies and mares in 2015 with Untapable and the $500,000 Razorback Handicap (G3) for older horses in 2017 with Gun Runner. Untapable won an Eclipse Award as the country's champion 3-year-old filly of 2014. Gun Runner captured two Eclipse Awards (Horse of the Year and older dirt male) in 2017.

Asmussen has a meet-high 49 victories this year as he seeks his record-tying 11th Oaklawn training title. The Oaklawn Handicap pushed his purse earnings at the meet to more than $5 million. He enters the final eight racing days at $5,072,636 and with a chance to break his single-season Oaklawn record ($5,644,609), set in 2019.

The post ‘We’ve Always Loved His Talent’: Silver State Turning To Gold For Asmussen appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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