crunk_o Twitter thread about the Santa Anita breakdown problem....
 

The situation is severe and a threat to racing there and everywhere.

Another Horse Dies During Training at Santa Anita Park
Bloodhorse today


The LA Times tonight
Santa Anita death toll for horses rises to 19 in last two months after another one died Monday

The problem was Santa Anita couldn't figure out how to install a synthetic surface that stuck.

But yes, synthetics are significantly safer and American racing's rejection of them is incredibly shortsighted and deadly.

LA Times has their eye on this. If there are more breakdowns, then the press will get louder (and worse).

I hope things get fixed, and get fixed soon -- I am gutted to hear this.

Ritvo better stop worrying about milking pools and worry about the safety of the horses.

Sure dirt is safe when it is dry. Synthetics are safe under all conditions.

Horses at turfway have it way better right now than Santa Anita.

Bob baffert complained and away went the synthetics and we got two triple crown winners and a bunch of dead horses.

Allan

Synthetic tracks are safer, no question about it.

Santa Anita, and Del Mar, have had problems with their track surfaces now for almost twenty years. The reason why the state mandated a switch to synthetics back in 2007 was because of fatal breakdowns. But Santa Anita screwed that up badly when they installed the Cushion track differently than the one at Hollywood Park (which worked fine), then they went to Pro Ride, and then they switched back to dirt. But when they switched back to dirt in 2010, it was the worst dirt track in history with ten claimers running blazing track record times. Then in 2014 they brought in Dennis Moore to replace the dirt track with another dirt track, and that track was intensely speed favoring for a few years and made the racing boring. And now the breakdowns are back. This is a long debacle that has cost the track tens of millions of dollars. I don't know what the answer is and I don't understand why Hollywood Park never seemed to have the severe problems with breakdowns that Del Mar and Santa Anita did.

Andy LaRocco is the track super, came in a few months ago to replace Dennis Moore, but he worked for Moore for a long time.

I thought Stronach should have tried to emulate the NYRA tracks, which do well in all sorts of weather conditions.

It seems to me they've been getting quite a bit more rain in CA recently than I can recall. They may not be as used to maintaining the track under those conditions as we are in the east. Let's hope they straighten things out quickly.

I wasn't a big fan of synthetic racing. I don't bet on it now. But if the sport is going to continue it's slow shift to turf racing the industry may reconsider visiting synthetic tracks again at some point because imo some of the synthetics (like Pro Ride) were clearly closer to turf than dirt in terms of which horses could handle it.

This is another area where Horse Racing ( NTRA types) has not kept up. Using the internet for PRO_racing activism and political support has never been properly mobilized. I mentioned recently that the NTRA twitter feed has 14K followers. But some popular players have twice that.


However the anti-horse racing activists are well organized. Articles such as the one in the LA times today will be tweeted, emailed, faxed, and postal mailed to Congressman, State Reps, etc... screaming "DO SOMETHING".

Meanwhile the NTRA is focused on its sales commission from the Advantage Program.


This is from a prominent anti-racing group with muscle.

As the hand-wringing ratchets up out at Santa Anita, after three kills in two days (16 hours, actually), including the high-profile Battle of Midway, word comes of another training kill there this morning. Charmer John, two (I use actual ages), is today’s victim. I now count 19 dead at Santa Anita Park since January 1. 19.

Santa Anita, as with all tracks faced with kill-spikes (see Saratoga 2017), is in full damage-control mode. Floating various possible culprits – the weather?, the track surface? – SA and the CHRB are desperately trying to convince the masses that no stone will be left unturned in the pursuit of “equine safety.” Please. The truth, for those who truly want to know, is as plain as the nose on your face: Horseracing kills horses as a matter of course. Always has. Always will.

The logic at the end of that always bothers me because without horse racing those horses literally would not exist. They were bred to race.

But with that said, it's high time racing does a better job. It needs to protect its horses by making racetracks safer at any cost. It's not going to cut it to have repeated outbreaks of fatal injuries as a by-product of racing, not in 2019.

Racing in general also needs to do a better job of publicizing the things it already does for horses now to be sure they don't end up slaughtered and that they aren't taken for granted. As Suff said earlier, that can be done through social media, the same way the anti-horse racing forces work it. I don't know how much "good news" messages will fight through the negativity, but they need to get out there.

Yes, they ( everybody) knows that. When we say Bred to Race, their call-to-arms is Bred to Bleed.

Heard today on ATR they are pulling up the track to inspect the cushion.
They certainly are not as familiar with off tracks as we are on the East. Wonder if it is a question not understanding the wet conditions correctly?

If you look at the history of synthetics in other sports, over time, they will invent more and more "dirt-like" synthetics. Just like modern infilled FieldTurf is a lot more "grass-like" than 1960's Astroturf in football.

I love the surface at Golden Gate ,Turfway.and Woodbine.................Tapeta is a solid surface.......Small fields make golden gate hard to play at times and the quality of horses is a problem at Turfway , But i find there speed figures to be more reliable , the surfaces are fair , and safe.................I feel far to many people complained about these tracks because they needed an excuse because they were losing..........My biggest pick 4 scores happened on syn surfaces

I see pullthepocket is now tweeting that locals in the LA area are saying the LA Times and local radio is now discussing it....this is just getting worse.

there's been more deaths on turf than dirt which is unusual so clearly something is affecting the track. i'm not sure about the rain thing, plenty of tracks get way more rain.