Casner on horse safety

[thaskalos]

From what I have seen, the horses that perform well on the turf are also quite competent on the synthetic surfaces...whereas the good turf horses usually flop on the dirt. Consequently, it surprises me that the synthetic surfaces are so despised, while the turf races have become the most popular handle-wise.

[cj]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

From what I have seen, the horses that perform well on the turf are also quite competent on the synthetic surfaces...whereas the good turf horses usually flop on the dirt. Consequently, it surprises me that the synthetic surfaces are so despised, while the turf races have become the most popular handle-wise.

I think that is exaggerated, personally. Plenty good synth horses move to turf and flop and also move to dirt and do fine. Nothing is ever simple in this game.

I think the synth racing is visually pretty ugly. Horses don't look near as athletic to me. Turf is not, horses look most natural on that surface. Dirt, I guess it is what I'm used to seeing so it seems ok.

[JustRalph]

Originally Posted by cj

I think that is exaggerated, personally. Plenty good synth horses move to turf and flop and also move to dirt and do fine. Nothing is ever simple in this game.

I think the synth racing is visually pretty ugly. Horses don't look near as athletic to me. Turf is not, horses look most natural on that surface. Dirt, I guess it is what I'm used to seeing so it seems ok.

If every race in the U.S. went to turf only ……..I think it would be welcomed. Warm weather tracks only…….no more cold, cold weather racing.

[cj]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

If every race in the U.S. went to turf only ……..I think it would be welcomed. Warm weather tracks only…….no more cold, cold weather racing.

Maybe, but we need way better turf courses.

[classhandicapper]

Based on what I see, I'm not sure there are many horses that actually "like" or "prefer" racing on synthetic. More often it's which one of them dislikes it least that's giving us the appearance of liking it. Granted, I don't spend any time trying to understand synth handicapping anymore, but when I initially tried, it was more problematical than an old dirt guy like me trying to learn turf better years ago. I refuse to play the races. I haven't bet a synth race in so long I can't even remember when the last time was. It might have been Rail Trip.

[Sheffwed]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

Based on what I see, I'm not sure there are many horses that actually "like" or "prefer" racing on synthetic. More often it's which one of them dislikes it least that's giving us the appearance of liking it. Granted, I don't spend any time trying to understand synth handicapping anymore, but when I initially tried, it was more problematical than an old dirt guy like me trying to learn turf better years ago. I refuse to play the races. I haven't bet a synth race in so long I can't even remember when the last time was. It might have been Rail Trip.

Watch races from Presque Isle - there are Tapeta sires like Animal Kingdom, Kantharos and many similar who all run better on Tapeta

Hardly true that horses don't like Tapeta, some do, some don't

Presque Isle has had many horses that have run there for years as successful specialists

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by Sheffwed

Watch races from Presque Isle - there are Tapeta sires like Animal Kingdom, Kantharos and many similar who all run better on Tapeta

Hardly true that horses don't like Tapeta, some do, some don't

Presque Isle has had many horses that have run there for years as successful specialists

I agree that "some" may like it. I didn't say "all" don't like it. I said I don't think there are "many". But you may have missed part of my point.

There's a difference between moving up and just being less bad. The latter gives you the impression you are moving up, but you are actually just moving down less than average to achieve greater success.

[o_crunk]

Originally Posted by Jeff P

I was recently interviewed by a reporter writing an article about the recent horse deaths at Churchill and how players might react to a resulting industry push for artificial surfaces.

The call lasted over an hour.

I mentioned Santa Anita's jump in breakdowns back in 2019 and the things Santa Anita did (pre-race vet inspections/medication reforms, etc.) to turn things around.

A day or two after the call I emailed the reporter a link to an article at USA Today covering how Santa Anita turned things around.

When asked about player reaction to a possible renewed industry push for artificial surfaces:

I told the reporter that when surveyed several years ago one third of players said they were strongly against artificial surfaces.

I said current handle data suggests players bet less on artificial surfaces than natural dirt and turf.

I thought Gulfstream Park makes an interesting test case because they race on all three surfaces - Dirt, Tapeta, and Turf.

After the call I ran year to date 2023 handle numbers 01-01-2023 to 06-04-2023 for Gulfstream Park and emailed them to the reporter who emailed back thanking me for the info:

Gulfstream Park 2023 YTD 01-01-2023 to 06-04-2023

Handle Per Runner by Surface:
$134,063 Turf
$120,071 Dirt
$102,501 Synth

Handle Per Race by Surface:
$1,214,509 Turf
$835,817 Dirt
$796,307 Synth

Avg Field Size by Surface:
9.06 Turf
7.77 Synth
6.96 Dirt


Don't know how much (or if anything) I said makes it into the article.

But to your point Ralph:

The Bloodhorse is owned by the Jockey Club and TOBA.

The industry is very much aware a significant percentage of players bet less on artificial surfaces than natural dirt and turf.


-jp
.

This handle data is little misleading. Couple things.

-Total handle will include inter-race exotics only on the payout race. So for example, a P5 sequence that might have 2 synth races, 2 turf races and an ending leg on dirt will have the whole of handle be counted as dirt. GP runs more synth than any surface during this period, but it's way more even on the big Saturday cards that the close out race is equally on dirt and turf vs synth. This will skew the overall handle results.

-GP runs zero graded stakes on synth. For this particular time period, some of the single biggest handle races all year in the entire country - FL Derby and Pegasus - are run on dirt, which will skew these results quite a bit.

When GP had huge handle declines over the summer, everyone said it was because of synth. So I ran some numbers on that - just give me the intra-race handle by surface for the meet in question.

This is their summer meet for 2021 (4/1/21 - 9/26/21)
Dirt
531 races
7.35 avg fs
$243.4M total intra-race handle
$458.4K per race intra-race

Turf
400 races
8.65 avg fs
$242.4M total intra-race handle
$606.1K per race intra-race

This is their summer meet for 2022 (4/7/22 - 9/27/22)
Dirt
369 races
7.58 avg fs
$168.4M total intra-race handle
$456.6K per race intra-race

Synth
364 races
8.02 avg fs
$168.2M total intra-race handle
$462.3K per race intra-race

Turf
94 races
8.10 avg fs
$51.8M total intra-race handle
$551.1K per race intra-race

I thought this was a pretty fair comp since this summer meet is devoid of the big handle graded stakes you see at the "championship" meet. If we were only to look at intra-race handle for the time period Jeff is looking at, the numbers would be similar to what Jeff has for the overall. But - and this might be a bridge too far for some - if we discounted the big dirt graded stakes and only looked at intra-race non-graded races, this is what I have for the time period Jeff references:

Dirt
293 races
6.89 avg fs
$156.1M total intra-race handle
$532.7K per race intra-race

Synth
346 races
7.76 avg fs
$202.9M total intra-race handle
$586.4K per race intra-race

Turf
290 races
9.05 avg fs
$232.3M total intra-race handle
$801.0K per race intra-race

My own personal opinion is that the anti-synth people are overselling the handle effect. We have seen KEE set their own meet handle records with it. We've seen TP do well with it. WO is A track at the per race level with synth. We've seen Breeders' Cups with synth that have set handle records. While it may be easy to find examples of synth damaging handle, there are just as many examples where it's not the doom it's proclaimed to be. For GP in particular, they basically decided they couldn't sustain turf racing year round at one track and you are seeing that reflected in the handle, they basically blew up turf racing there last summer which will have a larger handle effect than whether the races replacing those turf races were dirt or synth.

[Jeff P]

Fair enough. (Point taken.)


-jp
.

[classhandicapper]

It's always hard to control for all the moving parts in handle.

However, intuitively and from conversations, I know a LOT of people that say they don't bet synth or bet less on it. I don't know a single person that says they prefer synth and bet more on it. Some don't care either way, but I don't know anyone that seeks it out like they do turf or dirt.

I have a hard time believing that if we could control for everything, synth is going to handle as much as dirt, at least these days.

Of course if you are carding 5 horse dirt fields with huge favorites you are going to have some handle issues. If synth fields are a little larger and competitive that helps, but at GP for example you can counter that some of those synth races may be drawing horses from turf and gaining handle at turf's expense.

It's just to hard to control for everything.

[Spalding No!]

I'm not sure if Casner or Earl(e) Mack suggested this but if synthetics are indeed safer (at least from a perspective that focuses solely on fatal injury) then theoretically making them available for horsemen to use for training purposes would improve injury stats. You don't necessarily have to stop racing on natural dirt.

Horses don't "step in holes" & breakdown. Most injuries accumulate on a micro-level through repetitive training & then eventually come to a head at high speed. Horses train & breeze more often than they race. Training on synthetics should be kinder & perhaps even allow horses to run more frequently. As a bonus, during bad weather, horses could continue to train & not lose much conditioning even if there is no racing in the afternoon.

[cj]

Why isn't this being promoted in the industry?

https://www.thoroughbreddailynews.co...tabase-record/

Injuries and deaths are going to happen. The difference between dirt tracks and synthetic tracks is not enough to merit spending millions upon millions of dollars in my opinion. Many tracks would close up shop before installing synthetics.

Interesting to me that the shorter the race, the more dangerous it is, but nobody is calling to abolish sprints.

Doing things to appease people like PETA is silly. They want to ABOLISH horse racing. Cutting the fatality rate from 1.5 horses for 1,000 starts to 0.9 isn't going to make them embrace the sport. We shouldn't be doing anything to worry about those nutjobs.

The sport is doing a much better job of making racing safer. But those in charge have done a very poor job of getting this message out.

[cj]

Originally Posted by Spalding No!

I'm not sure if Casner or Earl(e) Mack suggested this but if synthetics are indeed safer (at least from a perspective that focuses solely on fatal injury) then theoretically making them available for horsemen to use for training purposes would improve injury stats. You don't necessarily have to stop racing on natural dirt.

Horses don't "step in holes" & breakdown. Most injuries accumulate on a micro-level through repetitive training & then eventually come to a head at high speed. Horses train & breeze more often than they race. Training on synthetics should be kinder & perhaps even allow horses to run more frequently. As a bonus, during bad weather, horses could continue to train & not lose much conditioning even if there is no racing in the afternoon.

Now there is a sensible alternative. But how many tracks can put in a track strictly for training?

[VeryOldMan]

Originally Posted by cj

Why isn't this being promoted in the industry?

https://www.thoroughbreddailynews.co...tabase-record/

Injuries and deaths are going to happen. The difference between dirt tracks and synthetic tracks is not enough to merit spending millions upon millions of dollars in my opinion. Many tracks would close up shop before installing synthetics.

We disagree about synthetic surfaces and the potential for them to make the sport safer. I look at the PID date v. the other PA tracks. Your mileage varies.

Complete agree about PETA.

I'm an advocate for contraction of US racing venues, so that's a feature rather than a bug for me.

Everyone's mileage varies on this board.

[castaway01]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

If every race in the U.S. went to turf only ……..I think it would be welcomed. Warm weather tracks only…….no more cold, cold weather racing.

From a competitiveness and wagering standpoint, definitely. Can't and won't happen but it's a good thought.