StrideSAFE CEO David Lambert Joins The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

As the sport continues in its efforts to drastically reduced the number of fatalities that occur in races and in morning training, there's little doubt that StrideSAFE is going to play an important role in preventing breakdowns.

StrideSAFE is a biometric sensor mechanism that slips into the saddle cloth to detect minute changes in a horses's gait at high speed. Those changes can, and often do, signal that a horse is in the early stages of having a problem that could lead to a fatal injury. If the StrideSAFE data is made available to trainers and veterinarians, they can use it to make decisions that very well could save a horse's life.

To learn more about StrideSAFE, we brought in its CEO Dr. David Lambert for this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland to discuss how the technology works and what it can do to keep our horses safer. Lambert was the Green Group Guest of the week.

“We recognized early on that every horse has his own unique way of going,” Lambert said. “The sensors would pick up the same pattern for the same horse all the time. But if something were to go wrong with that horse, then that pattern changes and the sensors are able to pick that up. And so the preliminary work was to look at cases where we knew the horses had suffered a fatal injury and try to quantify the nature of the patterns that preceded the fatality. That was the basic research that we had to tidy up, and that's where we are now. We've got that pattern. We can identify each individual horse's style. We've got an elaborate model that can tell us when the changes that are happening in a horse's body are happening and putting them at greater risk of a fatal injury.”

How effective is it? Originally, horses were put into three categories, red, yellow and green. Red representing the horses at the highest risk of being injured, while green includes the ones at the least risk. They have since changed the categories with horses in category five the most likely to suffer a fatal injury.

“The animals that have the worst signal and are in category five, the worst data, are 300 times more likely to suffer a fatality than are the ones that get the normal signal,” Lambert said. “So we're able to quantify the amount of risk a horse is at once he's come out of a race. So the horse is wrong. Here he is. He's back at the barn. We get the results. And that horse, the data that horse showed us in that race tells us that he was he's now 300 times more likely to suffer a fatality. We give that to the trainer. This isn't an absolute.  But that horse is a seriously increased level of risk. And all we're asking the trainer to do is have a special look, bring your vets in, because the vets know where these fractures occur.”

While no one is doubting that StrideSAFE's information is accurate and can be vitally important, the racing industry has yet to embrace it. It has been used on a trial basis at some tracks, including the NYRA tracks, but is not yet in regular use at any track. Why?

“I think the answer to that is probably just human nature,” Lambert said. “When you come with any idea to a large group of people there are going to be those unusual folks who jump on it straight away. And then there'll be those who get used to it a little bit later. The establishment and the political players, if you like, the management level, are going to be slower still. They have a complex responsibility to the sport at large. They must be absolutely sure that something is valid before they allow it to happen. They can't go off, you know, with a knee jerk reaction jumping in and causing more harm than good. And then, of course, at the other end of that, there's always the soothsayers that just want no part of it.  And then all of them are bound by money. They might want to do it and can't afford it. So there's the whole spectrum of things that have, I think, been in evidence as we've tried to bring this forward. But slowly but surely we're making progress. People are getting on board. And I'm feeling pretty optimistic now that we're going to get this done.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored byhttps://coolmore.com/https://lanesend.com/ the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders,https://www.nyrabets.com/ WinStar Farm, XBTV.com, Stonestreet Farms, Lane's End andhttps://www.threechimneys.com/ West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Zoe Cadman, Bill Finley and Randy Moss discussed the remarkable safety record at the recently concluded Del Mar meet where not a single horses broke down during the running of a race. The discussion included a look at a pair of 'TDN Rising Stars' who exited stakes races on closing weekend at Del Mar, where Tamara (Bolt d'Oro), the daughter of Hall of Famer Beholder (Henny Hughes), was a very impressive winner of the GI Del Mar Debutante. The team was not quite as bullish on the victory by Prince of Monaco (Speightstown), who was hard pressed to win the GI Del Mar Futurity as the 1-20 favorite. Randy Moss previewed the “Win and You're In” races to be held Saturday at Woodbine and will be broadcast by Moss and his team on NBC.

To watch the Writers' Room, click here. To view the show as a podcast, click here.

The post StrideSAFE CEO David Lambert Joins The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Mark Casse: “I’m Not Proud Of Our Sport”

Appearing as the Green Group Guest of the Week on this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland, Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse grew emotional when the subject of the rash of fatalities that have plagued the sport this year came up. Believing that the industry has not done all that it can to help alleviate the situation and that tracks must embrace a return to synthetic surfaces, Casse admitted that his outlook on his profession and the sport has changed for the worse.

“This is sad to say, but I'm not as proud to be a horse trainer as I used to be,” he said. “I'm not proud of our sport. That's sad. In my opinion, it's dangerous and I'm going to do whatever I can do to help it. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn who I piss off or upset.”

Casse came on to discuss some of the opinions he expressed earlier in the week from a Q & A that ran in the TDN. Because he has stables at Woodbine, where all racing is conducted on either the Tapeta surface or turf, and at U.S. tracks where the predominant surface is dirt, Casse, perhaps more so than any other trainer, is well versed in the differences between the various types of surfaces. He has become an outspoken supporter of synthetic tracks and insists that U.S. racing needs to make the conversion from dirt to synthetic.

“I think it is,” he answered when asked if the time has come for dirt racing to be replaced. “We've got years and years of data that says it's far safer. The path we're going down right now is ugly and we have to do something and we have to do it quickly. It's going to take a drastic measure.”

Some believe that the end of dirt racing would be a huge blow to the breeding industry, where hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in sires and bloodlines meant to produce top-class dirt horses. Casse argues that the potential problems have been exaggerated.

“It's not as big a worry as they make it out to be,” he said. “From my experience, maybe one out of ten horses don't like synthetic.  Most good horses will run on anything pretty well. And I can tell you, they'll run a lot longer and last a lot longer.”

This isn't the first time that Casse has been outspoken about industry issues. He has also been vocal about what he saw as the widespread and ill-advised use of clenbuterol. He said his only motivation is to try to make this a better, safer sport.

“I'm going to give you everything I have,” he said. “I'll go down fighting. You can only do so much but I will do my best. I'm doing my best. I'm not a good loser.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders, NYRABets.com, WinStar Farm, XBTV.com, Stonestreet Farms, Lane's End and West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Zoe Cadman, Bill Finley and Randy Moss also tackled the subject of synthetic surfaces, an issue that drew more attention after a tragic Saturday afternoon at Saratoga, which included the breakdown of New York Thunder (Nyquist) in the GI H. Allen Jerkens Memorial S. All three agreed with Casse that switching to synthetics has become a necessity. There was also a look at the GI Travers. S., won by Arcangelo (Arrogate) and an admission from Moss that he underrated the horse that is now the sport's leading 3-year-old male. The team also took a look back at the remarkable career of Hall of Famer Jonathan Sheppard, who passed away this week at the age of 82.

To watch the Writers' Room, click here. To view the show as a podcast, click here.

The post Mark Casse: “I’m Not Proud Of Our Sport” appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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On TDN Writers’ Room Podcast, HISA’s Lazarus Admits Mistakes Have Been Made

Because of a number of developments over the last few weeks that can be characterized as missteps, Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) Chief Executive Officer Lisa Lazarus has had a chance to reflect on what's gone right and what's gone wrong since the Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Program went into effect in May. Appearing as this week's Green Group Guest of the Week on the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland, Lazarus addressed the problems and made no attempt to sugarcoat them.

“If we look at the main thing that people are talking about, which is the rules covering intra-articular injections, workouts and races, we just got it wrong,” she said, referring to a rule that puts horses on a 30-day suspended list when they have had a workout within seven days of an injection or have raced with 14 days of the injection. HISA did not always enforce its own rules and several horses raced and/or worked while suspended.

She continued: “There's really nothing more I can say. But what I'm proud of is that we're a team and when we realize we get something wrong, we don't sort of sit on ego or stand on principle and say, we don't care. We're going to just power through. We try to fix it. So I realize that's going to always yield some criticism. And I accept that because, sure, ideally it will be better not to have gotten it wrong.”

Another issue was the initial rule which imposed a 60-day suspension on a trainer violating the intra-articular rule, which many saw as being too harsh of a penalty. HISA has amended the rule and first time offenders will no longer be subject to a suspension.

“The sanction was way too onerous given if you look at the entire structure of the sanctioning system,” she said. “It was just way too severe of a sanction to penalize a trainer for 60 days.”

One area in which HISA does not appear to be ready to make changes is how it deals with trainers who receive positives for substances that are on the banned substance list. In that case, the trainer is provisionally suspended almost immediately, before they have had a hearing and before the results of a split sample have come back. HISA critics have called this a case of “guilty until proven innocent.”

“I'm a huge believer in the provisional suspension,” she said. “I know it's tough and people have got to adjust to it and we've got to make sure that everything is okay in terms of how it operates. But it's a game changer because otherwise there's just too much incentive to kick things down the road. Do you really believe that any trainer would have come forward within 48 hours of a notification with information that was exculpatory if he or she was not really suspended? We need to get these things moving more quickly.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders, NYRABets.com, WinStar Farm, XBTV.com andhttps://www.threechimneys.com/ West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Bill Finley, Randy Moss and Zoe Cadman fondly remembered 2003 GI Kentucky Derby winner Funny Cide (Distorted Humor), who died earlier in the week of colic. The impending closure of Golden Gate Fields, announced Sunday by 1/ST Racing, was another major topic of discussion as was the coming weekend of racing, which will be topped by the GI Haskell S. at Monmouth. On the betting front, an explosive op/ed in the TDN written by Thoro-Graph's Jerry Brown about Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW) was on the menu, with the team agreeing with Brown's main premise, that CAW play is a serious problem that has to be addressed.

Click here to watch the Writers' Room podcast or here for the audio-only version.

 

The post On TDN Writers’ Room Podcast, HISA’s Lazarus Admits Mistakes Have Been Made appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Leslie And Pierre Amestoy Join The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

Owners Leslie and Pierre Amestoy have been involved with a bunch of good horses, some of them stakes-winning Quarter Horses, but never anything like Practical Move (Practical Joke). The winner of the GII San Felipe S. and the GI Santa Anita Derby so far this year, he will be among the favorites in the upcoming GI Kentucky Derby.

The TDN Writers' Room podcast, presented by Keeneland caught up with the Amestoys this week to find out more about their operation, their background and their thoughts on Practical Move. They were the Green Group Guests of the Week.

Their trainer Tim Yakteen, has been a big part of the story.  While he has deputized for Bob Baffert the last two years with his potential Derby starters, he's not normally someone who you think of when it comes to having Derby starters. But the Amestoys believe he has been a perfect fit when it comes to Practical Move.

“One of my old racing partners, Mike Abraham, knew Tim,” Pierre said. “And then another friend of mine, Jaime Gomez from Los Alamitos, knew Tim. I told them that I wanted to go to a nice barn, but I don't want to be with one of those barns that has 300, 400 horses. I want a more on-hands trainer. They both recommended Tim.

“We didn't meet him Tim till last year's Del Mar meet, when Practical Move was running his first race was. He was just as nice as could be. And we could see the operation in the barn. Leslie trained for ten or 15 years. So we knew what we wanted and Tim was what we wanted. He had a great set up and a good operation.”

The Amestoys, who own Practical Move in partnership with Roger Beasley, bought the horse at last year's OBS April sale. They said he was their number one pick among all the horses in the sale, but almost didn't get him. They budgeted $175,000 for the purchase and wound up paying $230,000. They liked the horse enough that they kept bidding until they got him.

“He was our number one pick, which we never get when we got to sales,” Leslie said. “We always pick the number one and can't buy him. We got him and we had no buyer's remorse ever. Oh, we loved him from the start.”

And that's why they named him Practical Move, because, in the end they thought it was a practical move to buy the colt.

As far as the Derby goes, the Amestoys are already thinking strategy.

“I think he's tactical enough,” Pierre said. “Ramon (Vasquez) can put him where he wants him. I would hope we can get a good enough break that we hit the first turn and we have two thirds of them behind us. We want to be up in the first tier or right behind the first tier of horses. This horse has a really good, really strong, high cruising speed so we can get a good spot and then cruise on the backside and set ourselves up. So if we get our trip, I think coming out of the turn, we're going to be close to the leader and then they're going to have to come get us. If his horse switches leads like he's supposed to I think he'll finish strong.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders, 1/ST Racing, WinStar Farm, and West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Randy Moss, Zoe Cadman and Bill Finley took a look back at the problems with the track surface at Laurel, the positive results coming out of Hawthorne since that track cut the takeout on win, place and show bets to 12% and the newest additions to the Hall of Fame. Not to be missed, the trio also discussed Proxy (Tapit)'s win in the GII Oaklawn H., and the decision by Jimmy Jerkens, who has been struggling to find the winner's circle the last few years, to start training in Saudi Arabia.

Click here to listen to the audio version of this podcast or click here to watch the video version.

The post Leslie And Pierre Amestoy Join The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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