Feinstein Wants Santa Anita Halted

[elhelmete]

Originally Posted by the little guy

I'm confused. How much more information needs to be given before people stop lumping Frank Stronach into anything happening at TSG? He hasn't been involved in decision making for some time.

I'm not taking sides, or offering an opinion, just some facts as there seems to be some constant confusion.

When have facts ever mattered to the frothy masses here?

[the little guy]

Originally Posted by elhelmete

When have facts ever mattered to the frothy masses here?

True. I just can't help myself ( sometimes ).

[MNslappy]

Originally Posted by Jeff P

What if we started allowing our track video crews to be more like other sports video crews? I'm certainly not saying the camera should zoom in and linger on a fallen horse. But I am asking: What if instead of making such an effort to scrub all traces of negative events from our track video, we simply let the camera show exactly what happened, including breakdowns, during the running of each and every race?

I know one thing that would result:

Our sport would get some (Imo, badly needed) transparency.

I know another thing that would result:

We'd feel each breakdown a little more.

Maybe we'd feel them a lot more.

Who knows? If we as an industry felt them strongly enough:

We might even be motivated enough to invent better ways of lessening the likelihood of breakdowns in the first place - as opposed to sweeping every damn one of them under the rug.



-jp

.

great post Jeff

[horsefan2019]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

This has been known for years. Indeed, for a long time it was assumed that HOL would stay open and SA would close, because SA was so much more valuable to develop.

The fact SA hasn't closed disproves conspiracy theories about the Stronachs. They like racing.

I heard the opposite, and I live in the area. Hollywood Park was desirable because it could be used to develop as a new stadium for the Raiders going back in the early 90's. Santa Anita even though its in a much more desirable area is already next to a mall, so its much harder justifying building another mall or commercial properties next to it.

[FenceBored]

Originally Posted by Jeff P

The events I described above aren't unique. They take place at every race track and with (Imo, alarming) regularity.

I play a lot of races, and I generally play at least five days a week.

It seems like I see at least one breakdown (at some track somewhere) almost every single race day.

After witnessing not one but two breakdowns within 90 minutes of each other today:

It hit me that if I can become as numb to this kind of wrong as I have - and make no mistake it is a wrong - then maybe we as an industry have become a little too good at sweeping our breakdown problem under the rug.

Even when we start having the information we don't always think through the consequences of what it means. Take the Equine Injury Database figures of 493 horses sustaining fatal injuries in a race last year from 293,555 individual starts. That means 1.35 every day for 365 days. But nobody runs every day, with a lot of tracks concentrated on the four day Thursday-Sunday schedule now.



For the sake of argument, let's say that all racing were taking place on the same days and we had 220 race days (4 days a week plus 12 extras for holidays), that would be 1334.34 starters and 2.24 fatalities at EID reporting tracks (one death for every 595.45 starters which is what the EID rate of 1.68 translates to).


That's what we would have known if we stopped to think about it. So, do at least two horses die every Thursday through Sunday at some race track in North America from a race injury? Yeah, we have to say that they do.

[PaceAdvantage]

I have a question or two.

The much-vaunted European racing model...you know, the one where breakdowns appear with less regularity than Halley's Comet.

How accurate are those breakdown statistics? Who is keeping track of them over there? What is the method involved? For that matter, how accurate are the stats for breakdowns in the USA? After all, one of the criticisms appears to be that few jurisdictions even keep such statistics. I take it many/most of these breakdowns are gleaned from result charts?

Maybe the problem in the USA is even worse than suspected? Maybe breakdowns in Europe happen more often than we are led to believe?

[HalvOnHorseracing]

Originally Posted by PaceAdvantage

I have a question or two.

The much-vaunted European racing model...you know, the one where breakdowns appear with less regularity than Halley's Comet.

How accurate are those breakdown statistics? Who is keeping track of them over there? What is the method involved? For that matter, how accurate are the stats for breakdowns in the USA? After all, one of the criticisms appears to be that few jurisdictions even keep such statistics. I take it many/most of these breakdowns are gleaned from result charts?

Maybe the problem in the USA is even worse than suspected? Maybe breakdowns in Europe happen more often than we are led to believe?

I think the biggest difference in Europe is the percentage of races run on the grass, with a slow pace early and a 3-furlong sprint to the wire. One advantage of grass is that the horses' feet don't slide in the same way they do on the dirt. Rain doesn't see to stop horses from running on the turf in Europe, both because of the design of the course and the superior drainage system.

I know that every time I watch a jump race horses go down and jockeys fly through the air. I don't know if those races are part of the statistics on racetrack deaths in Europe.

I don't know how many horses running at Saratoga go down on the grass, but I'd bet it's a lower number than the dirt. Perhaps more turf races would help us out.

One statistic to create some perspective. About 0.5% of starters break down. It's not meant to say that is acceptable. It's just the number we're talking about.

[Jeff P]

Back in the 2006-2009 timeframe when I was still using Brisnet data, I made an effort to look at this because I wanted to know if there was any basis to the claims about synthetic surfaces being safer.

Brisnet used to (likely still does) use a "92" for finish position in their .XRD result files to indicate that a horse failed to finish a race.

Based on that, I was able to get really close to breakdown rates for each of the three surfaces we race on - synthetics, turf, and dirt.

Doing this from memory because I don't have immediate access to my old Brisnet data, but I recall the numbers breaking out as follows:

Failed to finish a race (approx) per each 1000 starts:

1.20 -- synthetic
1.40 -- turf
1.60 -- dirt

Overall, I recall there being a 1 in 670 (approx) chance of a horse failing to finish a race after breaking from the gate and being made an official starter by the stewards.

Keep in mind the above numbers include horses that failed to finish a race for any reason... lost rider, clipped heels, saddle slipped, etc., as well as breakdowns.

Also keep in mind that not all breakdowns result in fatalities.

All of that said, the above numbers (in aggregate) aren't that far from the more recent fatality rates being reported from the Equine Injury Database.

As for overseas numbers? Can't say. (Wish I had the data.)


-jp

.

[Jeff P]

Wikipedia - Motorcycle safety:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_safety

Accident rates and risks
Travelling on a motorcycle carries a much higher risk of death or injury than driving the same distance in a car. In 2006 US motorcyclists had a risk of a fatal crash that was 35 times greater than that of passenger cars, based on 390 motorcyclist deaths per billion vehicles miles and 11.1 car fatalities for that distance.[2] In 2016 this rate was 28 times that for automobiles.[3]

What happens if we restate 390 motorcyclist deaths per billion vehicles miles the same way racing fatalities are stated?

Doing the math --

0.00000039 = (390)/(1,000,000,000)

or 

0.00039 motorcyclist deaths per each 1000 miles traveled.

Compare that to 1.5 (approx) horse fatalities per each 1000 race distances (5f to 10f approx) traveled.


Doing some more math --

(1.5 horse deaths)/(0.00039 motorcycle deaths) = 3846.15

If I've done that at all correctly, and somebody please jump in and correct me if I haven't --

That would mean a horse is approximately 3800 times more likely to die while running a race than a motorcyclist is while driving one mile.

And I thought motorcycles were dangerous?



-jp

.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by horsefan2019

I heard the opposite, and I live in the area. Hollywood Park was desirable because it could be used to develop as a new stadium for the Raiders going back in the early 90's. Santa Anita even though its in a much more desirable area is already next to a mall, so its much harder justifying building another mall or commercial properties next to it.

Go back to the 1990's when Hollywood was making a profit for RD Hubbard, and you will find extensive speculation about a closure of SA.

It flipped later.

[BCOURTNEY]

Originally Posted by FenceBored

Even when we start having the information we don't always think through the consequences of what it means. Take the Equine Injury Database figures of 493 horses sustaining fatal injuries in a race last year from 293,555 individual starts. That means 1.35 every day for 365 days. But nobody runs every day, with a lot of tracks concentrated on the four day Thursday-Sunday schedule now.



For the sake of argument, let's say that all racing were taking place on the same days and we had 220 race days (4 days a week plus 12 extras for holidays), that would be 1334.34 starters and 2.24 fatalities at EID reporting tracks (one death for every 595.45 starters which is what the EID rate of 1.68 translates to).


That's what we would have known if we stopped to think about it. So, do at least two horses die every Thursday through Sunday at some race track in North America from a race injury? Yeah, we have to say that they do.

What would be good is making the equine injury database available for public use and research, crowd sourcing works out hard problems all the time. There is a lot of free horsepower in the public space to look at the issues in new ways.

[FenceBored]

Originally Posted by PaceAdvantage

I have a question or two.

The much-vaunted European racing model...you know, the one where breakdowns appear with less regularity than Halley's Comet.

How accurate are those breakdown statistics? Who is keeping track of them over there? What is the method involved? For that matter, how accurate are the stats for breakdowns in the USA? After all, one of the criticisms appears to be that few jurisdictions even keep such statistics. I take it many/most of these breakdowns are gleaned from result charts?

Maybe the problem in the USA is even worse than suspected? Maybe breakdowns in Europe happen more often than we are led to believe?

According to Equibase (via the Jockey Club) there were 303,014 starts made in North America in 2018. The figure from the Jockey Club's EID is 293,555. It doesn't look like there's aton of unreported races. I don't see Oaklawn on the list of those who report their info to the EID program, but what other sizable track is missing outside of Puerto Rico (whom I assume is in the North American wide stats)?



http://www.jockeyclub.com/default.as...vocacy&area=11


Now, not all of them publicly release the limited data that the EID does release, but that doesn't mean they're not included in the overall figures.

[airford1]

Dont ever let Peta know what the %of horses that are bred for racing and never make it to the starting gate.

[FenceBored]

Originally Posted by BCOURTNEY

What would be good is making the equine injury database available for public use and research, crowd sourcing works out hard problems all the time. There is a lot of free horsepower in the public space to look at the issues in new ways.

I can understand them not wanting to hand all the raw data to their enemies in the animal rights movement, but in these last ten years I would have hoped they'd make a more concerted effort than they seem to have to mine the data for specific ways to improve things.

[FenceBored]

Originally Posted by FenceBored

According to Equibase (via the Jockey Club) there were 303,014 starts made in North America in 2018. The figure from the Jockey Club's EID is 293,555. It doesn't look like there's aton of unreported races. I don't see Oaklawn on the list of those who report their info to the EID program, but what other sizable track is missing outside of Puerto Rico (whom I assume is in the North American wide stats)?

That 303,014 figure is continental US and Canada only, no Puerto Rico. Subtract the Oaklawn figure and there's 4796 starts for the year that I'm guessing is the combination of some smaller tracks.