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[cutchemist42]

Originally Posted by foregoforever

Keep in mind, callous though it sounds, that the task is not to explain why 22 horses died. It's to explain why about a third of them died. Santa Anita has had a fatality rate significantly higher than the norm for years now. Two years ago, 14 had died in the same period. So the delta from "business as usual" is 8 or so.

While his forum manners may be a bit lacking at times, dahoss has a plausible argument. Go back and read the Bloodhorse interview with Ritvo at the start of the meet. He makes it clear that TSG is becoming more aggressive in SoCal. They want Los Al's dates. They want more stalls. And Ritvo was sent out there to increase profits. Increasing field size comes through loud and clear as a main objective. And how do you do that? You're never going to get any more shippers to come in. No new operations are coming in. The only way is to push trainers to run their horses. That had to be job 1 for the new RS.

Then read the BH articles with the Ruis bunch. The father complained about not being able to get stalls. The daughter complained, in early February, that the new RS harassed her to run a horse that she wanted to scratch because she felt the track was unsafe and accused the RS of threatening her with losing stalls. Ritvo and the RS have emphasized several times that stall allocations will be strictly based on statistics - whoever runs horses gets the stalls. If you're a trainer with a small or medium string, there has to be more pressure on you to run. If those guys have a few horses that need some time off, what are they supposed to do? Give them a break and your statistics go down and you likely lose stalls? Or try to keep them in training?

As for the track, Moore has found no problems. He hasn't said anything, or perhaps been asked about, the repeated sealing and unsealing that's been going on throughout the wet weather. What would he have done differently? And why was he "retired" in the first place? I wish I knew. Of course, I doubt that he'd answer those questions if asked, since he's being paid by SA.

Then TSG announces their new drug policy to great fanfare and suddenly looks like the hero in all this, despite the fact that drugs can't be the explanation for the current crisis. Then they back off two days later. Was the point in all of that to deflect attention for their own contribution to this mess?

And then, to top it all off, the guy that has been doing the best reporting on all of this from Day 1 - Jeremy Balan - finds himself out of a job in the midst of the biggest story about the business in years. I don't think you need to be a cynic to start connecting those dots.

Great post, I'm with you on the explanation.

The problem is still that PETA and the media will be clinging to every death whether it's at still the high rate or comes back down to their regular breakdown rate.