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Letter To The Editor: Racing Surfaces And Testing

by Dr. Mick Peterson and Dr. Wayne McIlwraith

This year marks 15 years since the Racing Surfaces Testing Lab (RSTL) was founded by an engineering faculty member at the University of Maine and an orthopedic surgeon from Colorado State University. The non-commercial material testing lab emerged out of the 2006 Grayson-Jockey Club Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit at the urging of Dennis Moore of Hollywood Park and Dan Fick of The Jockey Club. Initially located in one stall of a two-car detached garage in Orono, Maine, the independent non-profit was made possible by donations from The Jockey Club, National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Churchill Downs Inc., The New York Racing Association, California Association of Racing Fairs and Oak Tree Foundation.

The RSTL in 2023 has little in common with that modest start. Now located in Lexington, Kentucky, the RSTL is in a 3,400-square-foot building on a 1/4-acre lot. The fenced lot is filled with vans and trailers that performed more than 70 pre-meet inspections at 53 racetracks in 2023. The lab no longer just performs standard tests but develops tests in collaboration with the University of Kentucky and racetrack operators, researchers, and graduate students from Europe, Latin America, and Australia. Fifteen years ago, surface standards for horse racing in the United States lagged behind other racing jurisdictions and sports. Today, thanks to a combination of federal legislation and a unique gift, horse racing in the United States has the potential to become an international model for safety and consistency across sport surfaces.

The beginning of the shift started with a 2019 gift from The Jockey Club which enabled the RSTL to take over existing on-site testing and the maintenance database. The single set of equipment previously available for pre-meet inspection had been based in Maine and later in Lexington to serve all racetracks in the United States. The gift provided funding for equipment to be located in Lexington as well as on the West Coast.

With this equipment, the RSTL could perform pre-meet testing at racetracks across the United States and respond quickly if concerns arose. Laboratory material testing was modernized with new equipment, which allowed critical testing to be performed in less than an hour instead of over several days. The existing database was replaced by a new system hosted by The Jockey Club, which started the RSTL on a path to more comprehensive data storage and provided a modern interface for the racetracks to enter maintenance data. The timing could not have been more auspicious. Demand was poised to far outstrip the testing capabilities that existed prior to receiving the gift from The Jockey Club.

When the HISA Safety Regulations went into effect in July 2022, pre-meet inspection, material testing and daily measurements were required at all covered racetracks. As a result of these regulations, the Maintenance Quality System protocols developed over the previous decade had become more than suggestions followed by a few of the most progressive racetracks. Using the new equipment, pre-meet inspections were immediately implemented by the RSTL for HISA. Today, after only one and a half years, test data is available from all covered racetracks. Updated information infrastructure from The Jockey Club forms the backbone of a system that feeds data to HISA in real time. Epidemiological models of horse injuries can now begin to include quantitative racetrack surface data.

Work remains. Dirt, turf and synthetic racetrack surfaces need continuous improvement. Complete daily monitoring of the tracks exists at only a few racetracks. Real-time race surface data is needed by superintendents and researchers. However, the data infrastructure and regulatory framework is in place. New information can be fed to racetrack maintenance personnel. The commitment of the RSTL is unchanged. The design of equipment and testing protocols are all publicly available and subject to peer review. Data from the tracks is widely shared among other racetracks. No other racing jurisdiction and very few other sports have combined research with transparency to build surfaces that are consistent, from day to day, and throughout the United States and Canada.

Michael “Mick” Peterson, Ph.D. is the Director of the Racetrack Safety Program and Professor of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering at the University of Kentucky. He is also the Executive Director and a co-founder of the Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory. Wayne McIlwraith is the founding director of the Orthopaedic Research Center, a University Distinguished Professor in orthopaedics and holds the Barbara Cox Anthony University Chair in Orthopaedic Research at Colorado State University.

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Racecourse Manager Certification Program to Launch in June

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA), the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, and the Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory (RSTL) will launch a joint initiative offering a Racecourse Manager Certification from the University of Kentucky.

The initial three-course program, entitled “Turfgrass as an Equine Sports Surface,” is designed for those already engaged in careers with turf surface maintenance. Free online classes will begin June 7 and will be archived. Individuals who complete the video courses and pass a test that requires a $50 fee will receive a certificate of completion from the University of Kentucky. Participating Thoroughbred racetracks that enroll their personnel will receive credit toward future accreditation by the NTRA Safety & Integrity Alliance.

The “Turfgrass as an Equine Sports Surface” courses are:

June 7 – Selection of Turf for Climate Zones
June 14 – Cultivation of Turf for Compaction and Wear
June 21 – Measurement of Turf Condition

The curriculum for the turf management course was developed by Michael “Mick” Peterson, Ph.D., Director of the Racetrack Safety Program at the University of Kentucky and Executive Director of the Racing Surfaces and Testing Laboratory (RSTL).

Individuals interested in receiving additional information and pre-enrolling for the online sessions can click here.

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Integrated Racetrack Tester Next Step in Racetrack Safety

The definition of insanity, some smart person once said, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

In a twist on that aphorism, Kaleb Dempsey, laboratory manager of the Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory (RSTL), explained one recent afternoon how part of the problem with the way racetracks maintain their surfaces is that, by virtue of their tools, they have been restricted to doing the same things over and over and expecting the same kind of results.

Which is where a new bespoke piece of equipment, currently undergoing teething tests, promises something of a quiet revolution.

“The goal is to help improve the surface if it needs improving,” said Dempsey, of a device called the Integrated Racetrack Tester, which combines into one the role of various surface measurement tools, and relays information in real time for quick consumption.

We had met at Del Mar–what was then the latest destination in Dempsey’s whistle-stop tour of racetracks as part of a real-world baptism of fire for the tester, a product of The Jockey Club funding.

“It has been a work in progress, and still is,” he said, of the new tool. “There’s only one way to find out if it works and that’s field testing.”

According to Mick Peterson, head of the RSTL and pioneer of the Maintenance Quality System (MQS), the data collection service used by a number of racetracks, the new tool when ready will be delivered into the hands of superintendents at several places, including Churchill Downs, Maryland Jockey Club and New York Racing Association tracks, Keeneland, Del Mar, and Santa Anita.

So, why the need for the new tool?

Traditionally, racetrack superintendents have used two main devices to measure the relative soundness and consistency of a surface–the GoingStick, to test the going on the turf, and the FieldScout TDR Meter, which can measure moisture content in both the turf and the dirt.

The GoingStick measures both the amount of force needed to penetrate the soil and the “shear,” which is the force required to pull the device through the ground–two vital measurements to understand how a horse’s hoof will behave on a given surface.

The problem, Dempsey explained, is that the GoingStick is user dependent–or what he describes as “strain-rate” dependent. In other words, “If I take a measurement, and hand it to you, and you take a measurement, it’s going to be different,” he said.

Different track superintendents, therefore, run the risk of coming up with different going measurements.

The process of gauging surface moisture can be a similar data minefield.

The FieldScout TDR 300–the model that most tracks possess, said Dempsey–can measure moisture content only. And while the latest model, the FieldScout TDR 350, has the ability to measure additional details like salinity and ground temperature, they both come with an in-built glitch: “They’re both so heavily impacted by salt content,” said Dempsey.

What this means is that a track like Del Mar where the irrigation water can be extra salty runs the risk of producing moisture content readings that are off base, sometimes markedly so, said Dempsey. It might tell the operator that the track is saturated, for example, when in fact it’s just fine.

Frustratingly for track crews seeking important data readings at the touch of a button, it can also take many hours for the information that GoingSticks and TDR meters collect to be beamed back to the Kentucky headquarters of the MQS, where they’re processed into a palatable format.

“Ten years ago, nobody was collecting this data, and it’s time to improve it,” Dempsey said. And he hopes the Integrated Racetrack Tester will do just that.

Dempsey and his colleagues have taken a Longchamp penetrometer-a surface measurement device used in Europe–and modified it a number of ways. The first is the introduction of probe-like sensors that read moisture content, salinity, dielectric constant–the permittivity of the surface–and soil temperature.

As compared to the TDR meter, Dempsey said he has “much more faith” in the Integrated Racetrack Tester’s ability to accurately measure moisture content in even high saline environments.

Dempsey has left the ground penetration system intact–what amounts to a little weight that drops like a guillotine down an enclosed shaft and thumps a measuring stick into the soil. But he has attached an electronic sensor to collect that information digitally.

Importantly for track maintenance crews hungry for up-to-the-minute information, the device has been kitted with a sophisticated GPS system that logs the location of each measurement–both moisture-related and ground penetration–and beams it directly back to the MQS in Kentucky.

“It’s all moving in real time,” said Peterson. “That’s where we’re headed.”

As with most prototypes, teething troubles are inevitable, and the Integrated Racetrack Tester is no different, with one of the tool’s key sensors working perfectly well in the cool air-conditioned laboratory, but proving finnicky in the heat of the real world.

“We’re at the point to where basically if I can get the temperature problem fixed, which I’ve gotten a lot closer to, we’re ready to roll out five more of these,” said Dempsey.

The tester was recently trialed at Keeneland during the Breeders’ Cup meet. “The one thing I like and appreciate about it is that it takes the human element out of testing the surface,” said Tim Fahrendorf, assistant track superintendent at Keeneland.

“With the current probe, the TDR 300, it can be affected if you just slightly wriggle it–when the air gets down to where the probe tips are on the surface,” Fahrendorf explained. With the Integrated Racetrack Tester, however, “You stick it in the ground and it remains still,” he added.

Fahrendorf did, however, raise a potential wrinkle on the map: The way in which handicappers will have to adjust to a new data set.

“Most people are used to seeing the going reports,” he said. “With the new device, it might take a little bit of time for people to look at it, understand it, and then ultimately use it to handicap and make their wagers.”

When the Integrated Racetrack Tester is up and running smoothly, Dempsey hopes to attach the GPS system to other commonly used tools, like the ground penetrating radar–a device used to map the composition of a track subsurface–and the water truck.

By harnessing the ability of the GPS system to transmit real-time data on a variety of different machines, Dempsey hopes to gather into their centralized system a broad array of information about the condition of many of the nation’s racetracks.

From this rich data set, analysts might be able to refine what information points are necessary and which are superfluous with an eye to streamlining the current approach to racetrack maintenance, said Dempsey.

“What do we actually need to be measuring on these surfaces to check the consistency?” said Dempsey, who suggested that such an analysis could be completed within the year.

“Maybe what we’re going to find is that we definitely want moisture from the TDR. We don’t want penetration from the GoingStick, but we want shear from the GoingStick,” he added. “Maybe those are going to be the metrics that we find are useful.”

Peterson posited that the data currently being funneled into the MQS could also be a useful tool for better understanding the factors underpinning equine fatalities–especially if integrated with some of the industry’s other data systems, like the Equine Injury Database.

The key, Peterson emphasized, is that the information is detailed, accurate and comprehensive. “We need so many measurements through so many circumstances before we understand what the risk is to the horse and rider,” he said.

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