Steve Koch | Horse Racing Free Tips

HISA and Palantir Develop AI-Enabled Tool to Help Identify At-Risk Horses

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) has partnered with Palantir Technologies, a leading provider of artificial intelligence systems, to create a data-enabled tool to assist industry stakeholders in identifying horses at risk for injury before they race, according to a press release Tuesday morning from HISA. The tool will generate a daily report for each racetrack, flagging any horses entered in that day's races who may present potential risk factors for injury. This enables identification of at-risk horses with increased efficiency and accuracy and will inform the hands-on pre-race inspections of each runner.

The new tool HISA and Palantir have developed reviews health information and historical entry data to determine whether each horse entered in a race is at increased risk for injury based on various factors. The tool accounts for such risk factors as the length of a horse's previous layoff (if any), term with current trainer, history on the vet's list and other indicators of previous injury or poor performance. The process for evaluating these records for each horse entered in a race had previously taken veterinarians an average of five hours per race. This same review can now be accomplished in a matter of minutes.

“HISA continues to work with leading partners like Palantir to utilize data and technology in its mission to reduce equine injuries and fatalities,” said HISA CEO Lisa Lazarus. “Our hope is that this revolutionary technology is used to more efficiently and accurately identify horses at risk of injury as part of the screening process for determining if they're fit to race. This powerful, AI-enabled tool will streamline and automate a process that had previously taken significant time away from veterinarians' hands-on care of horses. We're excited to be working with the experts at Palantir on this and future initiatives.”

“Palantir is proud to support HISA in its embrace of technology to reduce equine injuries and fatalities,” said Palantir's Head of Global Commercial Ted Mabrey. “HISA came to a Bootcamp for Palantir's Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) this fall and has rapidly scaled its implementation independently. HISA is proving that real world outcomes, in this case equine safety, can be achieved in weeks with the acceleration that AIP and boot camps provide.”

“By leveraging Palantir's technology, HISA is helping to significantly reduce the time it takes to identify horses potentially at risk,” said Steve Keech, Director of Data Usage and Technology Innovation for HISA. “We look forward to rolling this tool out to all racetracks under HISA's jurisdiction. This collaboration with Palantir puts us at the forefront of sports technology, and I have no doubt this partnership will be a game-changer for the safety of equine athletes.”

HISA said they expected to begin using this tool in early 2024. It will send daily reports to racetracks and regulatory veterinarians around the country that will provide them with data and resources .

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Steve Koch to Florida Thoroughbred Breeders’ and Owners’ Association

Longtime Thoroughbred industry executive Steve Koch has joined the senior management teams of the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' and Owners' Association and Florida Equine Communications.

Koch will assume responsibilities in July for all operations and systems related to the FTBOA and FEC offices, meeting rooms, library and museum facilities. Koch will also coordinate a soon to launch, in-house video and broadcast production partnership and tenant relationship and will generally assist the management team in increasing awareness, economics and programs for the FTBOA membership and Florida Thoroughbred industry.

“It is an exciting time to join the FTBOA,” Koch said. “This new position combines my lifetime experiences in Thoroughbred breeding and racing and I am proud and looking forward to being part of an already strong and growing organization and dynamic Florida industry.”

Koch has held prior positions as vice president of Thoroughbred racing at Woodbine Racetrack, executive director of the NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance and was most recently a senior vice president for the Stronach Group.

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Training Over New Main Track at Laurel to Start Aug. 10

The extensive, expensive, and months-delayed installment of the new main track from the base up at Laurel Park is now close enough to completion that executives with The Stronach Group (TSG) have greenlighted Aug. 8 as the move-in date for horses and Aug. 10 as the first day of training.

Speaking via videoconference, Steve Koch, the senior vice president of racing for TSG, which owns both Laurel and Pimlico Race Course, said July 28 that the “whole oval really is an entirely new racetrack.”

Years of piecemeal repair jobs failed to provide the uniformity and safety standards that led to the closure of the surface for racing after the Apr. 11 program.

After switching the race meet over to Pimlico Apr. 22, TSG officials had initially targeted the start of June for the return of racing at Laurel.

At an Apr. 22 Maryland Racing Commission meeting, members expressed frustration at how Laurel's main track problems got so out of hand so quickly, grilling TSG executives for not having the foresight to identify and remedy the difficulties before the project spiraled into a multi-million dollar rehab.

But the initial excavation work revealed even more extensive problems, and then TSG ran into trouble with the sourcing of base and cushion materials.

Horses were mandated to be moved out of Laurel during the week of the GI Preakness S. in mid-May, and a revised July move-in date had to be pushed back to August as work progressed.

On Wednesday, Koch detailed the remaining work in stages, starting with the back straight from the six-furlong pole to the half-mile marker.

“All of the deep excavation is completed. All of the drainage tiles are laid in. All of that's been in-filled back. The base is laid back in there. And between finalizing the base and laying in that cushion, that will continue to happen through this weekend,” Koch said.

From the half-mile pole around the far turn to the second finish wire, Koch said the work “really is complete. The base is laid in all the way around there, and the tractors are actually working that material, getting a head start on having all of that cushion fully settled in. So that's really great news, that you can see a complete track all the way around the turn down the front stretch.”

From second finish wire around the clubhouse turn to the six-furlong pole, “that is where we still have a lot of work. That is where we are still re-laying that base rail to rail in fine grade, and it will receive its cushion going into next week,” Koch said.

“The very last thing that we will do is the chute. We anticipate that the chute will be done by the time that we are training horses out there on Aug. 10. But it will be last, and if any [remaining work] is held over, it ought to be in the chute,” Koch said.

The last four days of TSG's repair timeline before horses train over the surface are reserved for track maintenance crews “to be working the track in like a racetrack should be worked in before it's ready and safe for training and racing,” Koch said.

Mick Peterson, the director of the Racetrack Safety Program and a professor of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering at the University of Kentucky, has been retained as a consultant by TSG for the project. He fielded a question about the markedly different coloring of the new cushion by explaining its reddish hue is by design.

“The color does matter, and that's one of the tests we do,” Peterson said. “A small amount of iron oxide can make a big difference in the way it performs. That will tend to be redder. Not surprisingly–it's rust.”

As for the grass course, Koch said, “The turf at Laurel is looking great.”

But Koch quickly added the caveat that “it is suffering from some heat stress,” which is a typical mid-summer problem in the region.

Koch said the deep-tine aeration strategy that has been implemented throughout the course since the spring thaw has now been paused during the summer heat, but he added that it will probably become a permanent part of Laurel's ongoing turf maintenance.

“I can say this with confidence: The turf course is now draining way, way better than it was a year ago and it will continue to make improvements,” Koch said.

Racing continues at Pimlico through Aug. 22, then moves to Timonium during the Maryland State Fair Aug. 27-Sept. 6. Opening day at Laurel is Sept. 9.

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Pimlico: Turf Racing Suspended For Track Maintenance

Turf racing at Pimlico Race Course will be suspended from Friday, June 25, through Sunday, June 27, to allow for maintenance of the course.

The Maryland Jockey Club June 24 said the maintenance is needed as a result of the extended meet at Pimlico, which originally was scheduled to end live racing May 31. Pimlico opened a few weeks early in late April and was approved to race through Aug. 22 because of the ongoing dirt surface reconstruction project at Laurel Park.

The MJC said the maintenance will allow the Pimlico turf course to be used through the end of the summer meet in late August.

“We want to do more aeration and fertilization,” said MJC Track Superintendent Chris Bosley, who also oversees the turf courses at Pimlico and Laurel. “We want to be able to confidently say the turf course can hold up until we get back to Laurel (in early September). I think getting off the turf course this weekend will help us out a lot—it's a reasonable goal.”

Four grass races had been scheduled for June 25, both short and long, and two turf races around two turns were carded for June 26. The June 27 program will have seven races, all on dirt. The card for Friday, July 2, will be drawn Sunday, June 27, and MJC officials said they are hopeful the turf course will be ready for use for the weekend of July 2-4.

The MJC also announced a change in training hours at Pimlico from Monday, June 28, through Thursday, July 1, because of the removal and replacement of the temporary tent barns being used to house horses that were relocated from Laurel as well as those that ship in on race day from the Maryland State Fair at Timonium and other facilities in the state and region.

Training hours at Pimlico for all horses on those four days will be 5:00-7:30 a.m. with a break from 7:30-8:00 a.m. Training will resume from 8:00-10:00 a.m. but only for horses stabled on the Pimlico Road side of the property. Gate schooling will be available Wednesday, June 30, and Thursday, July 1, from 6:30-7:30 a.m. and 8:00-9:00 a.m.

Steve Koch, Senior Vice President of Racing for 1/ST RACING (The Stronach Group), said the barn transition project already has begun. The temporary stalls currently on the grounds at Pimlico must be relocated because of a previous commitment, and TSG is sending 140 stalls from Santa Anita Park. The tent structures to house the stalls will come from local companies.

There are currently 120 temporary stalls at Pimlico. The transition process will begin in earnest June 28 with a goal of having all 140 stalls available by July 8. An 18-stall barn behind the old wooden grandstand near the far turn at Pimlico is already being constructed to facilitate the transition.

Koch said he has mapped out a plan to address “the transition in the same footprint without displacing horses.” He said the strategy is to add stalls while removing receiving stalls to accommodate horses and ensure that each race day—currently Friday, Saturday and Sunday—120 stalls are available.

If all of the 140 stalls from Santa Anita Park are usable, there will be 20 more stalls at Pimlico than are currently available. When the first set of temporary stalls were constructed, Gulfstream Park, another TSG property, sent more than enough stall mats to accommodate the number of stalls, Koch said.

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