[The Pook]

The number of fatalities for horses at Santa Anita in the last three months has made the mainstream news. It was written up in The New York Times today. Rainfall, a depleted horse population, and aggressive training tactics are blamed. But mostly rainfall.

These are the fatality rates for all North American tracks in 2017:
On turf, 1.36 fatalities per 1,000 starts in 2017, compared to 1.09 in 2016;
On dirt, 1.74 fatalities per 1,000 starts in 2017, compared to 1.7 in 2016; and.
On synthetic, consistent at 1.1 per 1,000 starts year over year.

Did Santa Anita not have a synthetic surface at one time? Del Mar too? Synthetic, properly chosen and installed, has a consistently low rate of accidents. If they did, why did they change?

The track superintendant at SA said the surface there isn’t designed to handle the kind of rain they have been getting. That is likely the single biggest reason for what has been happening. My home track, Woodbine has been synthetic for many years, because of the extremes of weather we have through the seasons. A fast track all the time with relatively few breakdowns.

Extreme weather fluctuations are becoming more frequent everywhere. A consequence of our atmosphere and oceans warming. The worst wildfires one minute in California, floods the next. A return to a more resilient surface for SA and DMR, like an artificial one, would help them better deal with the unpredictable weather to come. I know this is a trivial consequence of our climate warming issue. Caused by spewing carbon for decades into the thin blue sphere, adaption will be key everywhere, until hopefully we eliminate or at least minimize this problem of our own making. For our sport, synthetic tracks would go a long way in doing just that.

Pook

I just saw the Guardian article that Mick posted. They did have a ProRide surface there at one time but had drainage problems. Also the local horseman didn’t like the Europeans coming over at Breeders Cup and beating them up with horses used to grass and artificial surfaces. They chose the wrong artificial surface IMO. Its only going to get worse.