The Breeders' Cup World Championships at Santa Anita Park will be conducted according to industry-leading safety and integrity protocols to ensure the wellbeing of all human and equine athletes. As previously announced, Breeders' Cup introduced an enhanced pre-screening protocol in the lead-up to this year's World Championships, upholding its ongoing commitment to putting safety first.

This year also marks the first time the Breeders' Cup World Championships will run under the full jurisdiction of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA), including the Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Program, which took effect in May.

Breeders' Cup runners are subject to strict anti-doping and medication control requirements, including out-of-competition, pre-race, and post-race testing administered by the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU). Additional safety and integrity protocols include equine security and surveillance measures, enhanced veterinary exam procedures, injury management protocols and racing surface maintenance and testing in the leadup to the event.

Early Preparations: Out-of-Competition Testing, Veterinary Coordination & Racing Surface Oversight

Beginning in July 2023, a list of potential Breeders' Cup contenders was developed. The list included a combination of graded stakes winners, Challenge Series winners, and other horses on the possible starter list. HIWU then performed out-of-competition (OOC) testing for banned substances on those potential contenders. Blood samples were taken by HIWU-trained collection personnel and sent for testing to HIWU-accredited labs. Breeders' Cup OOC testing administered by HIWU concluded Oct. 30 and resulted in the collection of 226 samples.

The Breeders Cup Veterinary Team also began holding coordination meetings with counterparts from 1/ST Racing, HISA, HIWU and the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) in July. Through a regular cadence of meetings in the ensuing months, the group outlined veterinary exam schedules, OOC testing, safety and medication regulations, injury management and diagnostic tool implementation.

Dr. Mick Peterson, Program Director of the University of Kentucky Racetrack Safety Program, has worked in collaboration with 1/ST Racing Track Consultant Dennis Moore throughout the year. Both surface experts have also consulted with HISA's new Track Surfaces Advisory Group throughout their evaluation and maintenance operations of the racing surfaces at Santa Anita Park.

Safety & Integrity Protocols: October through World Championships Week

The five-member Breeders' Cup Veterinary Review Team completed its initial phase of enhanced pre-screening protocols on Oct. 23. This included:

• The assessment of veterinary and treatment records as well as training and racing patterns associated with more than 200 potential contenders;
• Physical examinations conducted by veterinarians in relevant racing jurisdictions around the world; and
• The use of advanced diagnostic tools in the event additional scrutiny was required.

Attending veterinarians for all potential Breeders' Cup runners were required to submit 30-day treatment records–a nationwide requirement under HISA that will inform the Breeders' Cup Veterinary Review Team's second review–upon pre-entry. 24-hour surveillance began following the mandatory equine security check-in at 10:00 pm PT on Sunday, Oct. 29 for international runners and 11:00 am PT on Tuesday, Oct. 31 for domestic runners. All horses entered in a Breeders' Cup race underwent an additional round of HIWU-administered pre-race blood testing for banned substances on Tuesday, Oct. 31, with results set to be returned by race day.

Additionally, every Breeders' Cup runner is subject to:

• Comprehensive onsite veterinary exams, including jog exams and the use of diagnostic technology as needed, beginning Wednesday, Oct. 25;
• Random physical examination at the determination of the Breeders' Cup Veterinary Team;
• In-stall and on-track veterinary oversight during training and schooling;
• Mandatory jog-up veterinary exams before exiting any racing or training surface at Santa Anita Park starting Friday, Oct. 27;
• Pre-race veterinary examinations in the barn and veterinary monitoring of horses in the paddock and during warm-up on race day;
• Extensive post-race testing of the first four finishers as well as any runner that does not perform as expected and other runners as designated by the stewards; and
• Observation of all other finishers cooling out as they exit the racetrack to determine if any need aid.

Throughout the week leading up to the World Championships, Dr. Mick Peterson's team has been conducting various checks to evaluate all track surfaces. Additionally, TurfTrax software has been employed to measure the condition of the turf track. These results are posted daily for horsemen and the media.

Additional resources detailing Breeders' Cup's health and safety protocols for the 2023 World Championships can be found here and downloaded here.

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His team has conducted the ongoing testing at Churchill Downs, and it will be tasked this week with being sure Ellis Park is ready to handle a race meet in expedited fashion while also helping out with the continued surface analysis at Churchill.

TDN spoke with Peterson early Friday evening in the wake of the 12 horse deaths at Churchill that caused that track's corporate ownership to move a portion of its remaining spring meet to Ellis, which has not hosted racing since last summer. An edited version of that conversation follows.

TDN: Please describe your team's role, what's been done so far at Churchill, and what are the next steps at both Churchill and Ellis.

MP: I'm a professor at the University of Kentucky, and the university has set up with the racing industry to allow me to spend half of my time running the non-profit Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory in Lexington. We now have six full-time people, and we work for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) Authority doing testing. We also work for racetracks doing testing, and we do materials testing. Our standards, quite a few of them, have been adopted as international standards. Others, we're working on getting them accepted as international standards.

Our next priority is to do anything we can to help Churchill, and to evaluate the Ellis surface for HISA, because we're moving there and we need to make sure, to the extent that we can, that [Ellis is ready and safe to race].

We've got this really systematic “pre-flight” process we go through before each race meet. We did our testing 2 1/2 months ago to get ready for the Churchill race meet, and then we repeated it after [GI Kentucky] Derby week. It involves ground-penetrating radar, biomechanical surface testing, and we measure grades.

At the start of the race meet, everything looked good. It looked good after the Derby, too. We just didn't see anything out of whack.

I'm not going to pretend we know everything. That's not a part of what we're doing. We can work on consistency. But we've still got a lot to learn about safety. And that's really the wonderful thing about HISA. We're going to be doing this now at a [nationwide] scale, and it won't depend on who the general manager [at any given track] is. It will be every [track] just does the same thing.

So I've been thinking we're on the cusp of something good. And then the [12 fatalities at Churchill] happen, and it just makes you think, “What don't we know? What are we missing?”

TDN: What's next?

MP: At Churchill, we'll go back and I suspect we'll do some more testing. [West Coast track surfaces consultant] Dennis Moore has finished up [a round of testing this week], and I just talked to him right before you called, and we're just making sure we understand everything that we're looking at. He hasn't found anything of any note there. But we're going to keep looking.

What we're scheduling now [at Churchill] is the same testing we do for every other racetrack. We'll be doing 72 tracks this year according to the schedule. And we'll be doing the same thing at Ellis. Ellis was on the schedule for next week anyway. We're just going to [expedite] it, and if we find anything, we'll fix it. It's a seasonal track, so it's got its own set of challenges. My understanding is that before the announcement, [Churchill representatives] were over there [to try to figure out if Ellis] was ready.

I think [moving the meet to Ellis] is a good thing. We've got to figure out what was going on [at Churchill] and look at everything. And I don't mean just the track: Horse population, the history of the horses, et cetera.

TDN: Ellis hasn't hosted racing since last summer. Most dormant dirt tracks get rolled and compacted when not in use, then gradually get opened up with harrows prior to the meet starting. Where are they in that process?

MP: I don't know. We need to follow up. We just got the announcement [Friday]. But keep in mind that Del Mar, which incidentally, is a dirt track that has been the safest major track in North America for the last couple of years, they've got the [San Diego County Fair] on that [compacted] surface until like a week and a half before [racing begins].

What we generally say is the trick is to do three days of simulated racing, [which can be condensed into] a 24-hour period. We're talking watering, harrowing [and that repeated cycle]. That's how we make sure that the track is fully set up. Dennis Moore is the one who has probably perfected that.

TDN: Back in 2014-15, when Aqueduct had a spate of 12 catastrophic fatalities, TDN interviewed several veterinarians who suggested that absent of any identifiable problems, the deaths could be explained statistically as a “bad run of numbers.” That can make mathematic sense, but the theory tends not to go over well when people are demanding quick answers and causes. Could that be the case at Churchill?

MP: Remember, I'm not a veterinarian. I'm not even close. I'm a PhD engineer. But I'm pretty good with numbers. [And] if you look at this, this absolutely [could be what the New York vets] were talking about.

TDN: You've been working on track safety for the better part of three decades. Given the more intense focus on horse deaths, do you find increased pressure to come up with “magic bullet” types of answers to difficult, multi-factorial problems?

MP: The comparison that I like to make is that what I do is like the National Transportation Safety Board when they have a train derailment. I'm one of the pieces that goes into the puzzle for them to understand it so they can respond and do the analysis. But it isn't going to be just one piece. It's going to [involve] necropsy results. The drug testing. The past performances of the horses. The training history. All those pieces fit together, and then that's what a good post-mortem exam is going to look like.

It doesn't happen quickly, and it's probably way slower than it should [be], which is something that I think HISA has got to focus some effort on. But my role is to give them the track part of it. I think we've gotten to where we do a better job at that than we did. I'm not 100% satisfied. But we're working on it.

TDN: What, specifically, are you working on that could be a future game-changer?

MP: We have a prototype of a sensor that goes on the harrow, and it will give us moisture content and cushion depth in real time between every race. That really will be a “black box” that goes with the overall process. [Think of] our pre-meet testing as the pre-flight checklist. As we go forward, our goal is to make [the sensor] the black box [like the one that records in-flight data]. That's where we're headed. For better or worse, these are the sorts of events that [spur] progress.

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The first day of racing at Ellis will be held on June 10. The Churchill-at-Ellis meet will end on July 3.

Racing at Churchill will be held as scheduled this Saturday and Sunday.

“The team at Churchill Downs takes great pride in our commitment to safety and strives to set the highest standard in racing, consistently going above and beyond the regulations and policies that are required,” said Bill Carstanjen, CEO of CDI in a statement. “What has happened at our track is deeply upsetting and absolutely unacceptable. Despite our best efforts to identify a cause for the recent horse injuries, and though no issues have been linked to our racing surfaces or environment at Churchill Downs, we need to take more time to conduct a top-to-bottom review of all of the details and circumstances so that we can further strengthen our surface, safety and integrity protocols.”

Carstanjen's statement continued: “In addition to our commitment to providing the safest racing environment for our participants, we have an immense responsibility as the economic engine of the Thoroughbred industry in Kentucky which provides jobs and income for thousands of families every day. By relocating the remainder of the meet to Ellis Park, we are able to maintain this industry ecosystem with only minor disruption. We are grateful to the Kentucky horsemen for their support, resiliency and continued partnership as we collectively work to find answers during this time.”

Shortly after the Churchill statement was released, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) put out a release of its own, saying that it had recommended that the meet be suspended. HISA does not have the authority to close a meet down but can prevent a track from sending out its simulcasting signal if it feels that track is not making their best effort to deal with breakdowns and other safety issues.

“HISA's highest priority is the safety and wellbeing of equine and human athletes competing under our jurisdiction,” said HISA CEO Lisa Lazarus. “Given that we have been so far unable to draw conclusions about the cause of the recent equine fatalities at Churchill Downs, and therefore have been unable to recommend or require interventions that we felt would adequately ensure the safety of the horses running there, we made the decision to recommend to CDI that they temporarily suspend racing at Churchill Downs while additional reviews continue. We know that CDI and the KHRC [Kentucky Horse Racing Commision] share our goal of ensuring safety above all else, and we appreciate their thoughtfulness and cooperation through these challenging moments. We will continue to seek answers and work with everyone involved to ensure that horses are running safely at Churchill Downs again in the near future.”

The shift to Ellis was made despite widespread agreement among trainers, jockeys and by experts brought in to examine the racing surface that there were no issues with either the main track or the turf course. Of the 12 horses who have died, seven died in races run over the main track. There was also a fatality in a turf race and another during training hours. Wild On Ice (Tapizar), a contender for the GI Kentucky Derby, was the first fatality when he broke down during morning training on Apr. 27. Three other horses died due to causes other than musculoskeletal injuries.

Considering the widespread opinion that there is nothing wrong with the track, Rick Hiles, President of the Kentucky HBPA, came out with his own statement Friday in which he questioned the decision.

“Horsemen question the purpose of this unprecedented step, especially without conclusive evidence that there is a problem with the racetrack at Churchill Downs. We all want to find solutions that will improve safety for horses. However, we need to discuss allowing trainers and veterinarians to use therapeutic medications that greatly lessen the risk of breakdowns. Drastic steps, such as relocating an active race meet, should only be considered when it is certain to make a difference.”

The HISA statement also referenced the findings that there is nothing amiss with the racetrack.

“Track surface expert Dennis Moore completed his HISA-commissioned review of the Churchill Downs Racetrack and reported his findings to HISA earlier today,” the statement read. “After conducting his own inspection of the surface and reviewing data collected by Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory (RSTL) and Churchill Downs, he reported there were no primary areas for concern and has verified that the various track metrics analyzed are consistent with previous years.”

The decision to move to Ellis was approved Friday by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC).

“Today, Churchill Downs requested a voluntary move of their operations to Ellis Park for the remainder of their spring meet,” KHRC spokesperson Kristin Voskuhl said. “Out of an abundance of caution for the safety of all racing participants, the KHRC approved the move. The KHRC is working closely with Churchill Downs and the Horseracing Integrity & Safety Authority on continuing  investigations into the recent equine fatalities.”

The condition book for the Churchill meet and the stakes schedule will remain unchanged upon the shift to Ellis.

Last September, Churchill announced that it had bought Ellis from Enchantment Holdings for $79 million in cash. Following the Churchill-at-Ellis meet, racing will continue at Ellis. The 2023 Ellis meet runs from July 7 through Sunday, Aug. 27.

The move to Ellis will be an inconvenience for horsemen. Ellis is roughly 103 miles from Louisville. Despite that, Churchill-based trainer Dale Romans said he understood why Churchill made the move.

“I think it is overkill, but better to have overkill than to not pay attention to the breakdowns,” he said. “Yes, it surprised me when I first heard about it. But we are talking about a major corporate company and they don't want to keep going with things being the way they are only to figure out later that it was the racetrack. You can't execute Churchill for trying to do the right thing.”

When faced with similar problems in 2019, Santa Anita shut down its meet for about three weeks before resuming racing.

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“The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) takes the safety of all racing participants very seriously. The increased number of horse fatalities in Kentucky is concerning and the KHRC's veteran team continues to explore every known variable that could possibly be contributing factors in these deaths.

“Working daily with Churchill Downs and the Horseracing Safety Authority (HISA), the KHRC has taken the following actions:

• Opened an investigation into every horse fatality
• Interviewed jockeys, trainers, owners, grooms and backside workers regarding safety concerns and observations
• Increased pre-race scrutiny on every horse for racing soundness
• Participated in roundtable discussions with Churchill Downs' veterinary team, track superintendents and track executives looking for any recurring factor in the incidents.
• Reached out to California Horse Racing Board Executive Director Scott Chaney for best practices in the event of a rash of equine fatalities
• Participated in the HISA emergency summit and shared details of daily workouts, investigative interviews
• Created an executive-level safety steward position to coordinate daily track safety measures. Job details will be posted at KHRC.ky.gov when available.

“Out of an abundance of caution and effective June 7, 2023, Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund purses will be limited to first through fifth place finishers.

“All investigations opened after Apr. 29, 2023 are ongoing, but so far have not identified a common variable between these recent fatalities. The KHRC has not received necropsy reports from the University of Kentucky for any horse fatality after May 2, 2023. Once necropsies are completed and blood analysis is returned, the KHRC veterinary team takes a comprehensive look at all known factors that contributed to that death and compiles those results in a mortality review. As these reviews are completed, they will be made public and posted to the KHRC website at https://khrc.ky.gov/new_docs.aspx?cat=30&menuid=30

“Each completed mortality review will be shared with HISA for further review and recommendations.

“On June 2, 2022, the KHRC entered a voluntary agreement with HISA that grants them authority to oversee racetrack safety. On Mar. 21, 2023, KHRC entered a voluntary agreement with HISA's Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Program.

“With these agreements in effect, the KHRC has authority to suspend a license for any violation that threatens the integrity of Kentucky horse racing or the KHRC's ability to protect the racing public except where HISA has preempted state regulations in the areas of 1) track safety, and 2) anti-doping and medication control (“ADMC”).  If a track had violations related to either of these areas, HISA would have jurisdiction.”

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Over the past several days, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) has undertaken multiple measures to better understand the circumstances surrounding the recent spate of equine fatalities at Churchill Downs in hopes of working with the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) and Churchill Downs to mitigate additional risk to the horses and riders competing at Churchill Downs moving forward.

On Tuesday, May 30, HISA convened a Veterinary Summit with its counterparts at Churchill Downs and the KHRC to thoroughly review all veterinary information available and conduct additional analyses. Those discussions continued through yesterday with ongoing engagement between the veterinary teams. Specifically, the Summit included robust discussion of three different points of intervention with regard to racing injuries: 1) injury management, 2) preventing at-risk horses from racing via veterinary scrutiny, and 3) preventing at-risk horses from entering.

The dialogue was productive and conclusions from the Summit have been shared directly with key stakeholders to inform next steps. While no obvious or specific pattern emerged, HISA welcomes Churchill Downs' efforts announced earlier today to minimize risk of equine fatalities and is implementing the following additional measures:

1. Effective with Saturday's entries, HISA's Director of Equine Safety and Welfare will conduct an additional layer of post-entry screening. HISA's rule 2142 (Assessment of Racing Soundness) requires post-entry screenings of previous pre-Race inspection findings of entered Horses to identify Horses that may be at increased risk for injury. The review includes past performances, lay-ups (more than 60 days without a timed Workout or Race), last 30 days medical history, previous injury and lameness diagnostics, intraarticular corticosteroid injections, previous surgery and other individual Horse risk factors.
2. HISA has directed the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) to collect blood and hair samples for all fatalities involving Covered Horses. The results from such collections will be used to facilitate investigations into the cause of such fatalities. The data collected by HIWU in connection with Covered Horse fatalities will also be used to track relevant statistics and trends in connection with fatalities.
3. HISA has appointed Dr. Alina Vale, an equine forensics specialist, to conduct an additional thorough review of all necropsies performed on Covered Horses. Dr. Vale has conducted several postmortem reviews as an official veterinarian for the California Horse Racing Board, including participating in the review following a spate of equine fatalities at Santa Anita in 2019.

Additionally, Dennis Moore began his analysis of Churchill Downs' racing and training surfaces yesterday. That review is ongoing; Moore's conclusions will be shared publicly once his review is complete.

HISA continues to urgently seek additional answers to more clearly identify the causes of these recent fatalities as well as tangible interventions to prevent them in the future. All options remain on the table, and HISA will continue to vigilantly monitor events at Churchill Downs moving forward.

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The statement appears in full below:

The Maryland Jockey Club has cancelled its Thursday, Apr. 27 racing program at Laurel Park due to insufficient entries. The racing office will be open and taking entries Sunday for the Friday, Apr. 28 program.

We acknowledge the recent statements in the press regarding the safety of our racing surface. However, we want to emphasize that 1/ST Racing and the Maryland Jockey Club prioritize safety above all else, and continually engage in proactive analysis of our racing and training surfaces. To this end, we have engaged the services of Dennis Moore, a renowned industry expert, who has been conducting routine testing of the Laurel Park racing surface for the past three days. Dennis, along with independent engineering experts, have performed a comprehensive battery of tests during this time, to ensure the safety of our racing surface.

Particle size distribution via the following methods:

• Laser diffraction
• Sieve and hydrometer
• Orono Biomechanical Surface Test (ASTM Standard F3400)
• Peak Vertical Load
• Peak Fore-Aft Load
• Peak Vertical Deacceleration
• Ground Penetrating Radar
• Percentage surface crossfall
• Bulk Density
• X-ray diffraction
• Base inspection

The results of these tests were all within industry norms. Based on these tests and their professional knowledge, our track experts have advised that there are no issues with the track and that it is safe to race and train.

In addition, Dr. Jennifer Durenberger, Director of Equine Safety and Welfare with HISA, has at our request reviewed Laurel's fatality data and stated, “I've reviewed the data provided to me this morning by the Maryland Racing Commission and find a racing fatality rate at Laurel of approximately 1.3/1,000 starts since January 1st. By comparison, the Equine Injury Database shows a rate of approximately 1.98/1,000 at this same point (through Apr. 21) last year.” As stated the current fatality rate has decreased from last year at the same point.

Even though the track surface is within industry standards certain Horseman have determined not to submit entries for this Thursday's racing card. Hopefully after reviewing the facts live racing will proceed.

We hope that all stakeholders will be able to come to a consensus and adopt the enhanced veterinary and safety protocols that have been implemented with great success in California. MJC has made repeated requests of the horsemen and are still waiting for their approval to be able to move forward with their implementation.

While we all know that catastrophic injuries will not be eliminated completely it is clear from the above that our track is not the issue, and we urge the Commission and the MTHA to take advantage of the proven enhancements to improve horse safety.

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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.”

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“This was the tenth edition of the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit,” said Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation's President Jamie Haydon following the event. “It's really astounding to think that we couldn't measure how many horses had died on the racetrack when we started this, and now not only are we presenting risk factors nationally, but we heard veterinarians also giving local risk factors. Since the first summit until now, the safety and welfare of our human and equine athletes is the guiding principal and stays the guiding principle. To see over a 30% decrease in fatality rate tells me that we've come together and we've done a lot of work.”

The full video of the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit will be available to watch on the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation's website on Thursday, June 23.

Equine Injury Database Update, 2-Year-Old Fatality Spike in 2020

Dr. Tim Parkin, the Head of Bristol Veterinary School and a member of the Equine Injury Database Scientific Advisory Committee, provided the most recent findings from the Equine Injury Database.

Parkin reported that since the database was launched over a decade ago, annual fatality figures on all racing surfaces have reduced by 30.5% from a high of 2.1 per thousand starts in 2009 to less than 1.5 in 2021. In addition, fatality risk has reduced by 35.6% since 2009 for dirt racing specifically.

Parkin also presented findings on data collected in 2020, when there was a 43% increase in fatal injuries in 2-year-old compared to 2019. With the increase in fatalities, there was a decrease in the overall number of workouts by 2-year-olds due to the impacts of COVID and an altered racing schedule.

“It is interesting to see that while we saw a similar, less pronounced training disruption in older-aged horses, we didn't see an impact on their risk of fatal injuries,” Parkin noted.

Along with the conjecture that the disruption in training may help explain the increase in fatal injuries, Parkin said they found that later in the year as racing resumed to a more normal schedule, 2-year-olds workouts suddenly increased–presumably in an attempt to compensate for a lack of training earlier in the year. He noted that this could have been another contributing factor leading toward the spike in fatalities.

Parkin also discussed recent findings on sudden deaths in racehorses. Since 2009, the database has recorded a 30.6% drop in the risk of musculoskeletal fatal injury, but only an 18% drop in risk of sudden death in the same period.

“A decrease in breakdowns suggests that risk factors have been identified and people are starting to develop interventions for musculoskeletal injuries, but those same risk factors haven't had the same impact on sudden death,” he explained.

While the percentage of overall fatalities due to sudden death was between 5 and 6% in 2009, in several recent years, sudden death has accounted for over 10% of overall fatalities.

“Probably the reason why people are talking more about sudden death, apart from potential high-profile cases, is that because of the reduction in the overall contribution of musculoskeletal injuries to the total number of fatal injuries, the proportion of horses that are dying due to sudden death is rising,” Parkin said.

One potential risk factor for sudden death, according to Parkin, could be the use of Lasix. Their data has shown that use of race-day Lasix increases the risk of fatality by 62%, with a 0.08% incident of sudden death per thousand starts with horses raced without Lasix and a 0.13% incident per thousand starts with horses treated with Lasix.

“The reason why this has not been identified before is purely due to statistical power,” he said. “When you have more than 95% of starts being made on Lasix, it is very difficult to identify a difference between those racing on Lasix and the very few that are not. We now have a sufficient number of years of data related to sudden deaths in the database to enable us to draw these conclusions.”

Dr. Bramlage Examines Advantage of 2-Year-Old Racing

Internationally-recognized equine surgeon Dr. Larry Bramlage of Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital spoke on recent findings relating to the racing and training 2-year-olds. Bramlage is a strong advocate of training horses as juveniles.

“2-year-olds are right at the end of their growth period,” Bramlage explained. “During their growth period, their skeleton is replete with the blood supply and cell population to build bone. It doesn't make any sense to let that totally atrophy until this horse is a 4-year-old, because then you have to build it all back. You want to pick up that support system and convert it from growth to adaptation to training.”

Bramlage evaluated findings examining the most effective methods for building up bone in racehorses. He said that one important aspect of equine physiology is that while bone trains to the level of work, the cardiovascular system trains to the amount of work. He used the example of interval training. While the high-intensity exercise benefits humans, whose limiting factor is the cardiovascular system, he said the same form of training is not as effective for horses.

“Horses can't take that amount of training,” he said. “Their heart and lungs are so good that they just pass the skeleton. The limiting system is always the skeleton in the horse. The best training episode will have a furlong in it that's a little faster than the other furlongs. That shows the horse where they're going to go next week when they breeze.”

Bramlage connected this idea to what may have caused the increased 2-year-olds fatality rate in 2020. During the first half of the year, with few race dates on the horizon, most trainers were only galloping their 2-year-olds. Bramlage said that once racing started up again, trainers may have squeezed breezes together in a tighter time period with a higher intensity.

“What that does is we've now wound up the engine at a much higher level than we've wound up the undercarriage,” he said. “Since the heart, muscle and lungs train to the amount of training, not to the level, if you're just galloping at the same speed, the bone is not making much adaptation. When you ask it to adapt in a short period of time, you compound the problem of the faster breezing schedule with the fact that the heart, lungs and muscle are more mature than the skeleton is. The horses could go faster, but the skeleton wasn't as prepared.”

Regulatory Veterinarians' Perspectives and Looking Toward Racing's Future

In a session focused on equine safety and welfare from a California perspective, Dr. Dionne Benson, the Chief Veterinary Officer of 1/ST Racing, and Equine Medical Center surgeon Dr. Ryan Carpenter discussed the many changes California racing has made since the publicized series of breakdowns at Santa Anita in the spring of 2019.

Medication reform, private veterinary exams, additional race day monitoring and risk assessments prior to races and works were among the major implementation that Benson said has bettered their program and improved the safety and welfare of their horses. Since September of 2019 at Santa Anita, 7,400 unique horses have been examined and over 21,000 pre-work exams have been conducted.

“We just finished a six-month meet at Santa Anita and had three fatalities in racing,” Benson said. “I think it's working. It's certainly a team effort. It's not just the veterinarians. It's the trainers, the owners and the private veterinarians. The one thing that impresses me the most is that we really have changed to a culture of safety out there. Very few people will take that one last shot and enter that horse to get one last race whereas at other tracks, we tend to see that more aggressive attitude. I think there is a conscious effort to put the horse first there.”

Later in the day, a regulatory veterinarian panel was moderated by Dr. Mary Scollay-Ward, the Executive Director and COO of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium. Participants included Prairie Meadows' Dr. Jaclyn Bradley, Churchill Downs Equine Medical Director Dr. Will Farmer, and the Minnesota Racing Commission's Chief Commission Veterinarian Dr. Lynn Hovda.

Scollay asked the three veterinarians a series of prompts centered around how their jobs have evolved since they first started out in the industry.

“One of the unique aspects of my role is that I deal with multiple racing jurisdictions,” Farmer said when asked of the most challenging aspect of his position. “For me to really be in the weeds in each of those jurisdictions, that's why I see the usefulness of HISA to be able to bring some of that together. I have four racing jurisdictions and every one of them is different. As regulatory veterinarians, our biggest challenge is communication.”

Later in the day, KEEP Foundation's Equine Education Coordinator and Amplify Horse Racing President Annise Montplaisir, who served as MC for the summit, moderated a panel on the importance of welfare and safety to youth entering the Thoroughbred industry. Participants discussed why the younger generation places a greater emphasis safety and welfare and shared their thoughts on practical tactics individuals in the industry can use to promote racing to young people.

Also during the summit, a panel was held on the latest updates with equine wearable technology. TDN's Dan Ross recaps the segment here. Other topics throughout the day included jockey wellbeing and fitness, positron emission tomography, an update on racing surfaces testing, and Keeneland and The Thoroughbred Training Center's use of InCompass Solutions.

Biographies of participants, agendas and additional material from the summit can be found here.

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