StrideSAFE Town Hall in Kentucky: “This Could Be the Answer Horsemen Are looking For”

Last week, the research team associated with StrideSAFE–a biometric sensor mechanism capable of detecting minute changes in a horse's gait at high speed–announced that seven of eight horses that suffered catastrophic musculoskeletal cases at Churchill Downs during its most recent meet showed via post-race readouts abnormalities as soon as they left the starting gate.

In a nearly two-hour town hall Monday morning, StrideSAFE founder David Lambert and Churchill Downs equine medical director Will Farmer dug into the details, discussing the findings from an ongoing study in Kentucky and fielding questions from horsemen.

Eric Hamelback, CEO of the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA), kicked the town hall off by cautioning how fatal equine injuries can happen no matter the regulatory safety net in place.

“Regulations are not going to eliminate risk,” said Hamelback. “And quite frankly, we don't want regulations to eliminate horsemanship.”

Over the next two hours, Lambert made the case that StrideSAFE–which can pick up the sorts of very subtle lameness undetectable to the human eye that are significant enough to possibly cause major musculoskeletal failures at some point down the line–could, if utilized smartly, go a long way to reducing the number of horses injured on the track.

“I firmly believe the only way this problem is going to get solved is if we give the trainers the right kind of information and give it to them in time to give them a chance to do something,” he said, before alluding to the national attention focused on the recent spate of fatalities at Churchill Downs. As a result, the meet was transferred to Ellis Park.

“Right now, you guys are on a beating to nothing,” Lambert added.

As part of a study funded by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) and in tandem with Washington State University, StrideSAFE has been used on all horses that have raced during the Churchill Downs spring 2023 meet, which concludes this Sunday. It has also been used on a select number of horses breezing during the morning.

In all, researchers have collected information from 6,616 individual runs.

The information is organized like a traffic light. A result in the red means there is a potentially major problem and immediate scrutiny of the horse is needed. An amber result suggests a small amount of change in the gait, and cautions connections to be on the lookout. A green result means there is no change and no immediate concern.

According to Lambert, about 5% of the horses studied were given the highest risk red-flag rating. These horses, he added, were about 300 times more likely to suffer a fatal injury than a horse green flagged.

As to how the technology works, StrideSAFE is a wireless iPhone-shaped device that 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.

“That's 2,400 data points every second your horse is running or breezing, so this is a massive amount of brand-new information that nobody has ever [received] before,” said Lambert.

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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.

In Monday's town hall, Lambert singled out the story of a horse that finished fourth in a Grade I event and showed no visible signs of lameness afterwards. The horse subsequently broke down over a week later during training.

“That sensor is screaming that the horse is in trouble,” said Lambert, highlighting abnormalities in a readout of the horse's high-speed gait during the race.

The town hall proved contentious at times, with some of the attending horsemen–many of whose concerns were voiced by Hamelback–sharing their frustrations that last week's announcement by the StrideSAFE researchers might have given the impression to the layman public that trainers should have known beforehand their horses were at risk.

Lambert apologized about the framing of the press release, all the while stressing how StrideSAFE could be an invaluable tool to catch potential problems early. The trick, explained both Farmer and Lambert, is to pair the StrideSAFE technology with a diagnostic follow-up to pinpoint the site of any brewing issue.

“It's not a diagnostic tool, it's a screening tool,” said Lambert,

Three red-flagged horses were subsequently scanned using the new PET imaging unit at the Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Kentucky, according to Denise McSweeney, a co-investigator in the study.

Lambert also admitted that the information collected from StrideSAFE paints far from a complete picture.

Not all the horses given a high-risk red-flag designation will suffer a fatal injury, for example. That's because in part, the horse's stride can be affected by things like the motion of the jockey and by stumbles out of the gate.

Furthermore, “very occasionally, a green-flagged horse will go down,” said Lambert.

But the current inconsistencies in data interpretation are outweighed by the high rate at which the technology identifies potentially at-risk horses, he argued.

“If there's a chance you'll save a jockey from being paralyzed, it's worth doing,” said Lambert, adding how greater use of StrideSAFE would aid in researchers and clinicians getting a better baseline understanding of what the data means.

Attendees also raised data privacy concerns. According to Farmer, the study results are not shared with the KHRC. Rather, the information is sent to Washington State University, where Warwick Bayly is the lead investigator.

In certain cases, the panelists explained, researchers have followed up with the horse's connections directly.

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) is not affiliated with the program.

The ongoing Kentucky study marks just the latest StrideSAFE trial to show promising results.

Of the 20 horses that suffered fatal musculoskeletal injuries during the period of a trial involving the New York Racing Association (NYRA), 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.

“Really what my sensor is doing is helping horsemanship,” Lambert said on Monday. In racing's ongoing quest to reduce equine injury and harm, he added, “This could be the answer horsemen are looking for.”

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StrideSAFE Team Concludes Churchill’s Musculoskeletal Fatality Data Showed Pre-Existing Conditions

A research team associated with StrideSAFE, the biometric sensor mechanism capable of detecting minute changes in a horse's gait at high speed, concluded that the majority of the recent musculoskeletal fatalities at Churchill Downs were due to pre-existing conditions. A total of 12 horses suffered fatal injuries over a recent five-week period at Churchill, leading track officials to unveil new safety initiatives and then move the remainder of the current meet to Ellis Park.

A grant was awarded to StrideSAFE by the Kentucky Equine Drug Research Council (KEDRC), prompting a research team to hold a two-day meeting at the company's headquarters in Midway, Kentucky. In attendance were lead investigators Dr. Warwick Bayly and Dr. Denise McSweeney; co-investigator and StrideSAFE CEO Dr. David Lambert; and team consultants Dr. Mikael Holmstrom, Dr. Kevin Donohue, Dr. Sue Stover, and Dr. Laura Kennedy; as well as Greg Pachman, who represented StrideSAFE management.

The team reviewed Churchill's recent fatalities, of which eight of the 12 were race-day musculoskeletal events. All eight of the horses were carrying StrideSAFE technology. Seven of the eight musculoskeletal cases showed abnormal sensor readings as soon as they left the starting gate.

“Had the sensors been on the horses in prior races, they could have pointed to an issue the horse was having weeks or even months earlier,” said Lambert. “These results give us great optimism that with consistent use, we should be able to identify issues long before they are discernible to the human eye. StrideSAFE technology will empower trainers and veterinarians with vital information which they can use in their daily efforts to safeguard the welfare of their horses.”

TDN has published a number of stories on StrideSAFE's technology in the past year, including The Missing Link to End Fatal Musculoskeletal Injuries?; Data, Data, Data: The “New Frontier” for Horse Racing; and NYRA, StrideSAFE Sensor Technology Study Begins New Stage.

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McIngvale To Help Defray Costs of StrideSAFE Technology at Rillito

'StrideSAFE' Horse Safety will be instituted as part of the track's Equine Wellness Program during the 2023 racing season, and prominent Thoroughbred owner James McIngvale has pledged to cover two-thirds of the costs for the testing of Thoroughbreds.

StrideSAFE is 'a biometric sensor mechanism that slips into the saddle cloth to detect minute changes in a horses's gait at high speed.' The changes are said to be undetectable to the naked eye and are recorded in a stoplight fashion–green for all clear, varying shades of amber as warnings for possible lameness issues and red for the most potentially serious injuries.

In a study conducted by the New York Racing Association of 6,600 starters in 2022, it was reported that the StrideSAFE technology accurately detected 90% of all the catastrophic injuries. The Rillito study aims to identify horses the Track Regulatory Veterinarians should examine before they run.

The testing of 1,000 Thoroughbreds and American Quarter Horses during the meet is estimated to cost $45,000. Though the technology has only been applies to Thoroughbreds thus far, Quarter Horses will be included at Rillito. Following the research, American Quarter Horse tracks could employ the StrideSAFE sensors across the country.

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NYRA, StrideSAFE Sensor Technology Study Begins New Stage

Since last summer, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) has trialed on thousands of runners a discreet sensor technology capable of detecting minute changes in a horse's gait at high speed.

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.

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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.

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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.”

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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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