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2020 Figures Show Lowest Fatality Rate In History Of National Database; Juvenile Fatality Rate Up

An analysis of data from the 12^th year of reporting to the Equine Injury Database (EID) shows a decrease in the rate of fatal injury in 2020 (1.41 per 1,000 starts) compared to 2019 (1.53 per 1,000 starts), The Jockey Club announced today. The 2020 rate of fatal injury is the lowest number since the EID started collecting data in 2009. The risk of fatal injury in 2020 declined 7.8% from 2019 and 29.5% overall since 2009.

Based on the 2020 data, 99.86% of flat racing starts at the racetracks participating in the EID were completed without a fatality.

Key statistics from the 2020 analysis are as follows (figures represent the incidence of racing fatality per 1,000 starts):

By age

o 2-year-old: 1.69

o 3-year-old: 1.57

o 4+-year-old: 1.29

By race distance

o <6 furlongs: 1.66

o 6 – 8 furlongs: 1.35

o >8 furlongs: 1.22

By track surface

o Dirt: 1.49

o Turf: 1.27

o Synthetic: 1.02

For trends of the EID since 2009, please visit jockeyclub.com/pdfs/eid_12_year_tables.pdf.

Statistical Summary from 2009 to 2020

(Thoroughbred Flat Racing Only)

Calendar Year	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
Rate	2.00	1.88	1.88	1.92	1.90	1.89	1.62	1.54	1.61	1.68	1.53	1.41

Two-year-olds have consistently been associated with the lowest incidence of racing fatality since the EID began in 2009. In 2020, the incidence for 2-year-olds was 43% higher than in 2019. Three-year-olds and horses four years of age and older saw 8% and 14% declines, respectively, in the incidence of racing fatality per 1,000 starts versus 2019. None of the differences in incidence among age groups were statistically significant.

The incidence of fatal racing injury on dirt surfaces in 2020 was the lowest on record at 1.49 per 1,000 starts. Races on the grass were 19% lower in 2020 versus 2019 and the fourth lowest for that surface since 2009. Synthetic once again had the lowest incidence of all racing surfaces at 1.02 racing fatalities per 1,000 starts.

The incidence of fatal injury per 1,000 starts for races shorter than six furlongs (1.66) was again greater than other distance categories of six furlongs to a mile (1.35) and over a mile (1.22). The incidence of fatal injury for both distance categories in excess of six furlongs were the lowest on record in the EID.

“Overall, there was an 8% decrease in the risk of fatal injury from 2019 to 2020. Since 2009, risk has declined by 29.5% (P<0.001) or equivalent to 140 fewer horses sustaining a fatal injury while racing in 2020 than would have occurred had there been no change in risk since 2009,” said Dr. Tim Parkin, the veterinary epidemiologist who has consulted on the EID since its inception. “We will dig deeper into the numbers in the coming months to better understand trends in the 2020 data.”

“Although we are thrilled to see improvement in the numbers from 2020 and commend the racetracks and regulatory authorities in their efforts to reduce injuries, other areas require closer study,” said Kristin Werner, senior counsel and administrator of the EID. “The recording of additional data through tools like the Electronic Treatment Records System and the Management Quality System of the Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory will give regulators, racetracks, and researchers a better understanding of horse health and racetrack safety, allowing for additional scrutiny and research aimed at preventing injuries.”

Since March 2012, racetracks have been able to voluntarily publish their statistics from the EID on The Jockey Club website. The racetracks that publish their EID statistics reported racing fatalities per 1,000 starts of 1.30 as compared to 1.47 for those that do not publish.

The 21 racetracks accredited by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association Safety and Integrity Alliance reported 1.32 racing fatalities per 1,000 starts versus 1.48 for the 62 non-accredited tracks that raced in 2020 and reported to the EID.

The Jockey Club thanks all participating racetracks for supplying these critical data and continues to encourage the reporting of all injuries and fatalities occurring during racing and during morning training hours. All data entered into the EID goes through a multilevel quality control process to ensure the data is completely and accurately reported.

The EID statistics are based on injuries that resulted in fatalities within 72 hours from the date of the race. The statistics are for official Thoroughbred races only and exclude steeplechase races. Summary statistics for the EID are subject to change due to a number of considerations, including reporting timeliness.

The list of racetracks participating in the EID and detailed statistics from those tracks that voluntarily publish their results can be found at jockeyclub.com/default.asp?section=Advocacy&area=11.

Throughout the course of 2020, approximately 99.7% of all Thoroughbred starts were included in the EID.

The Equine Injury Database, conceived at the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation's first Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit, was launched by The Jockey Club in July 2008 and seeks to identify the frequencies, types, and outcomes of racing injuries using a standardized format that generates valid statistics, identifies markers for horses at increased risk of injury, and serves as a data source for research directed at improving safety and preventing injuries.

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Palmer: Want To Make Racing Safer? Get Your COVID-19 Vaccine

As COVID-19 vaccine rollouts continue to ramp up across many racing states this week, New York State Gaming Commission equine medical director Dr. Scott Palmer said the best thing racing industry participants can do to make horses safer is to sign up for a shot.

Why?

Because in analyzing data on Thoroughbred fatalities from 2020, Palmer said he has determined the COVID-19 pandemic could be considered a novel risk factor for fatal injuries last year. Overall, there were 24 percent fewer fatalities per 1,000 starts in the region in 2020 as compared to 2019, but Palmer noticed some shifts in the types of fatalities that did occur. The number and percentage of overall fatalities that occurred during racing (versus training or other activities) went down, which Palmer said was to be expected since the pandemic pause resulted in resulted in fewer race cards in 2020 versus 2019.

He did see a change in the proportion of fatalities occurring in training, however – especially in juvenile runners.

“We had a very unusually high number of fatalities in 2-year-old racehorses, particularly at Saratoga Racetrack this summer,” said Palmer, who presented the data during a teleconference hosted by the Association of Racing Commissioners International. “There are always many factors that enter into fatalities and I'm not going to try to tell you COVID was the only reason for that, but you put COVID on top of a really crummy winter where it was tough to train anyway, and it wasn't like we could move the Saratoga meet back to September.”

Once racing was cancelled, Palmer said it didn't make sense for some owners that keep their horses on the farm to send them to the track as usual and pay a day rate when they had no idea how much longer racing would be shut down. Some 2-year-olds didn't post their first official timed works until June, much closer to their debuts than usual. Out of the eighteen 2-year-old fatalities in 2020, eight occurred in horses that had never made it to the races.

“That's a really big deal,” Palmer said. “That was an enormously different experience than we'd ever had before.”

Palmer pointed out that many horses, including those 2-year-olds, did not get the usual timeframe for the bone remodeling process which is crucial to preparing the skeleton for the rigors of racing.

Equine (and human) skeletons undergo a constant cycle of response to environmental stressors, with the bone surface absorbing micro damage, then removing damaged bone cells and replacing them with new cells. In this way, the skeleton can respond dynamically to the stresses it undergoes, which is why a period of gradually-increasing workload ahead of a race prepares the horse for the rigors of running. The removal of damaged bone cells is quick, but Palmer said the creation of new, stronger bone is much slower. It's not always clear to a trainer where a horse is in the development process, since horses may appear sound throughout.

By the time horses did get to the races last year, many ran fewer times overall than they would normally have in a calendar year, reducing the opportunities for their skeletons to respond to intense exercise before the next race.

Palmer also reported that in New York, the pandemic had a serious impact on the number of out-of-competition tests (OOCT) that could be administered. OOCTs typically happen with two regulatory staff getting in a car together to collect the needed samples; during COVID-19, that kind of travel couldn't happen. It's hard to say whether trainers were using more medication out of competition to patch horses through a busy summer and fall because they simply weren't tested as much.

That's why he wants you to get vaccinated – horses, trainers, and regulatory veterinarians can only return to their regular duties as COVID-19 rates continue to come down and developing herd immunity will contribute to that, he said.

The Mid-Atlantic region has generally improved its fatality numbers with time; when expressed as a rate per 1,000 starts, racing-related fatalities are down 43 percent from 2010 to 2020, which officials find encouraging. For the first part of the decade though, the Mid-Atlantic tracked higher than the national average rate. Those rates have become more similar in the past five years, and while the national data from the Equine Injury Database is not yet published for 2020, Palmer expects they will once again be very close. The racing fatality rate in the Mid-Atlantic for 2020 was 1.39 per 1,000 starts.

The way numbers are expressed makes a big difference in their specificity and their context for regulators, and Palmer said the public and the media do not always grasp the importance of this. For example, New York saw 24 fatalities from 14,895 racing starts last year, and 42 fatalities from timed workouts; that would make it seem as though working out is more dangerous than racing in New York, but leaves out the context that there were 49,073 official timed workout events. The state's racing fatality rate was 1.6 per 1,000 starts, but its training fatality rate was 0.8 per 1,000 timed workouts. Expressing numbers as rates also makes it easy to compare data between years like 2019 and 2020 when the state had drastically different numbers of races.

The EID has yielded numerous reforms to improve racing safety, but Palmer said commissions need to begin focusing on making appropriate changes in the morning, too.

“We don't regulate training in the same way we regulate racing,” Palmer pointed out.

Even in jurisdictions where there are regulatory veterinarians observing morning training, there may not be enough of them to visually cover all parts of a track, and it's easy for a trainer to sneak a horse with questionable soundness through a different gap before the sun is up.

Video surveillance can help veterinarians pick up on problems (though, citing the case of Mongolian Groom ahead of the 2019 Breeders' Cup, Palmer pointed out it's only as good as the monitoring of that video).

Palmer believes regulators need a better idea of how much medication horses have on board for timed workouts; he pointed to California's recently-updated rules prohibiting non-steroidal anti-inflammatories within 24 hours of a timed work and subjecting horses to post-work sampling to verify compliance. Even if a jurisdiction doesn't have that rule, Palmer suggested random sampling as a fact-finding endeavor, as well as sampling any training fatalities.

Palmer also suggested that track maintenance become a priority in the mornings. He recently conducted a study of moisture levels at Belmont and found significant differences between the main and training track. During a drought, it's difficult to keep New York's sand-heavy track surfaces sufficiently watered in the afternoons, but the water trucks and harrows can make much more frequent passes over the surface than they can in the afternoon.

Data showed the main track surface at Belmont is considerably wetter than the training track surface.

“Is that good? Is that bad?” he said. “I have no idea … what I do know is we want to have a consistent surface for all horses and I'd submit to you that this is not as consistent as it needs to be.”

The final component for improved safety, according to Palmer's recommendations: mandated continuing education for licensed trainers, to make sure those who might miss this story have all the information they need.

Currently, trainer CE will be required in Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Virginia in 2022. It will be a condition pending legislative approval next year in West Virginia, and is still “under consideration” in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

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California Veterinarian: Looking Back, Voided Claim Rule Was First Step In Right Direction

As the dust has (somewhat) settled from the high-profile spate of horse fatalities at Santa Anita Park in 2018-19, one California veterinarian said that the culture around injury prevention in the state has completely changed. Dr. Ryan Carpenter led a virtual panel discussion earlier this month as part of the 2020 American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) Convention, gathering veterinarians from different disciplines to speak about how safety efforts have evolved in their sport in recent years.

Carpenter, who is a racetrack practitioner and orthopedic surgeon in Southern California, has spoken before about the shift from skepticism of new medication and veterinary regulation by horsemen and private veterinarians to a comfortable acceptance.

“I think we all agree that from a racetrack perspective, safety begins and ends in the shedrow,” said Carpenter. “The cultural shift that we took here in Southern California was [to become] very risk averse. We can't afford to have fatalities. The media is very critical of us and every horse that is euthanized is a significant impact to our industry.”

Looking back, Carpenter said that one of the first important steps the state's racing industry took towards safety reform was its voided claim rule. The voided claim rule will void a claim if a horse comes out of a race with an injury or epistaxis.

“What that did was it took away this perception of passing off a problem to another trainer,” said Carpenter. “It made trainers take a little more responsibility for their horse at that time, and started the first step of this process of becoming more risk averse.”

Veterinarians from other equine sports echoed Carpenter's observations that participants and the public have demonstrated an increased interest in safety from them, too. The focus on steeplechase racing injuries can be a challenge for organizers, as many steeplechase meets are not parimutuel but are part of a charity fundraising effort. As such, the budget for certain types of improvements to fences and course is tighter than it might be at a conventional track.

“Nobody is feeling good about where we're at, but we know we're going in the right direction,” said Dr. R.R. Cowles, founder and past president of Blue Ridge Equine.

Cowles pointed out that American steeplechase racing began collecting injury data some 15 years ago and that national data shows that fatalities have decreased each year for the past decade, with the only exception being this year.

In eventing, Dr. Erin Contino, assistant professor of equine sports medicine and rehabilitation at Colorado State University, said that information gathering has been a critical first step. On a cross country course, some fences are not visible to anyone besides jump judges, who may have varying levels of experience or recall when it comes to documenting why a rider or horse fell. Now, at least at the international level, cross country runs are being videoed so that if an accident happens, the potential causes can be analyzed later. Data shows that corner jumps, downhill jumps, and water jumps are all associated with higher rates of accidents. That information is being provided to course designers, along with funding and encouragement to utilize frangible pin technology, which allows a fence to collapse if hit hard enough, in an effort to reduce rotational falls.

U.S. Equestrian Federation (USEF) medication restrictions have evolved significantly in recent years, according to Dr. Richard Mitchell, co-owner of Fairfield Equine Associates. He recalled a hunter years ago who was found to have three non-steroidal anti-inflammatories in its system — which were only discovered because the horse also tested positive for cocaine. That was a wake-up call, Mitchell said. Now, hunter/jumpers and equitation horses under USEF rules can no longer stack NSAIDs. There are also thresholds and withdrawal times just as there are at the racetrack.

“We've come a long way there with these horses,” said Mitchell of medication restrictions. “Granted they're not running at speed but yet we do have our jumpers that do have a speed element to their competition and accidents can occur. Ensuring these horses are fit to compete is really important.”

In the world of professional rodeo, Dr. Douglas Corey said changes have been slow.

“I think they've sometimes seemed very slow but I think they've come as a result of continually educating the membership,” said Corey. “I think communication is a very big part of it.”

Rodeos began requiring veterinarians on-site at competitions relatively recently, has allowed the beginnings of data gathering on accidents or injuries. Corey suggested that continuing education for participants, event organizers and fans of rodeo is the biggest hurdle for the sport to continue advancing. Many of the sport's participants come in with generational knowledge — but it's not always accurate.

“I think that's a challenge we've all had to overcome and I've really seen it in rodeo,” said Corey. “It's like my dad did it this way, my granddad did it this way, I'm going to do it this way. That's not always the best case. Changes had to happen.”

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PETA Buys Stock in Racetracks

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a longtime critic of many of the practices in horse racing, has purchased stock in four companies which own racetracks–VICI Properties, Boyd Gaming, Penn National Gaming, and Gaming and Leisure Properties—in order to make their case in the boardroom, according to a press release from the organization.

The release says that, “PETA’s proposed changes include replacing dirt tracks with high-quality synthetic ones, banning trainers who have multiple medication violations, and banning whipping. Tracks will be encouraged to work with state racing authorities when necessary.”

It was unclear exactly how much stock PETA had purchased. The companies collectively own Mountaineer Park, Charles Town, Thistledown, Belterra, Mahoning Valley Racecourse, Evangeline Downs, Delta Downs, Retama Park, Sam Houston, Zia Park, The Meadows, and Penn National.

While not saying so directly, PETA’s Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo hinted that the organization was pleased with the recently concluded Santa Anita meeting, where there were no training or racing fatalities.

“Track owners in California and Kentucky are changing their rules and sparing horses a gruesome death, and every track owner in every racing state needs to do the same,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is eager to get inside the boardroom and push racetracks to make simple changes that will make a world of difference for vulnerable horses.”

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