Im afraid this may be the last day of the Spa meet

[Tom]

Originally Posted by BELMONT 6-6-09

No inner turf course Tom at Belmont as the construction (destruction) continues

That was my point, Bel is already at Aqu, BAQ.

No room for Toga yoo. Qhat, SBAQ?

[lamboguy]

Originally Posted by P.Rosa

The thoroughbreds of past were less than 14 hands, now they measure mostly 15 to 17 hands. Race horses have been bred to be fragile and too big.

The power the horse has comes from his hindquarters, you build those up, and you can get a fast horse. tap every single joint along with other tricks and the horse has fewer limitations to perform faster. but when you take that pain away from the horse, the horse doesn't feel much, and what could be a slight bone shatter will expand and become a major fracture. then you can blame the track surface all you want for a catastrophe that doesn't look too good and never needs to happen.

[shout1966]

" The Jockey Club collects information on 113 American racetracks. The reported rate of thoroughbred fatalities has steadily decreased from 2.00 horse fatalities per 1000 starts in 2009 to 1.53 in 2019."


From the




These stats are from 2009-2019





I feel the main reason horses dying on tracks are being so polarized is mainly the problem with everything else in the world. The media and the internet I.E. social media. Everything is under a microscope. It's always sad to see a horse fall down and die on the track, I have seen more then my share of what I would want to see both on TV and live at the track. But death as we know it is part of our life people animals and such die every day. Do I believe its the track or the track surface absolutely not, this is imo , I have no data or evidence to back this up but also I have not seen any to say it is the track surfaces.

[Tom]

How does this year at Toga compre the previous years?
And how do Toga and Del Mat compare, both havind a rush od 2yo races?

You know, understand what is really going on before we instll tapeta at every track, rush to Woodbine...

[shout1966]

according to the LA Times 12 horses have died at saratoga summer of 23. How we can work this into a death per 1000 across the country is difficult.

[Sheffwed]

Three times as many deaths on track this Safatoga meet than any of the last ten years

[lamboguy]

people have been bringing their younger horses to Saratoga because its the safest surface to train babies over. some of these babies cost in the $millions.

these breakdowns have nothing at all to do with the track surfaces at Saratoga Race Course.

[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by Sheffwed

Three times as many deaths on track this Safatoga meet than any of the last ten years

three times seems inaccurate. Maybe three more. Three times? Are you sure?

I think the breakdowns per meet have averaged about 12 or so per year. up to 21 a couple years. Not sure if the majority of those has somehow been in training, but I'm pretty sure there isn't 45 total breakdowns or something this year.

Surprise me with the tally.

[pandy]

Since many of the fatal injuries were on the turf courses at Saratoga, it's hard to just say that it's the track surface. I don't know what the answer is. Even though there aren't any fatality stats from the the 70's and 80's, I only remember one meet that had a problem back then and that was the 1975 Belmont meet when Ruffian broke down, several horses broke down on the turn that meet. In 1990 when Go For Wand broke down in the Breeders Cup, Mr. Nickerson had a heart attack and died. To me, that's around the time when things started to get progressively worse.

I wish we knew the reason. Is is the breeding? Drugs? We don't know for sure, but for the first twenty years that I followed racing, horses seemed to be racing more often and with less physical problems.

[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by shout1966

" The Jockey Club collects information on 113 American racetracks. The reported rate of thoroughbred fatalities has steadily decreased from 2.00 horse fatalities per 1000 starts in 2009 to 1.53 in 2019."

i'm not reading many posts that describe how we've improved the vet exams or breed or medications, but have had an unfortunate cluster.

it's like the posts on CAW odds drops where nobody bothers to project will-pays.

Other than the nostalgia factor, and the two heart-breaking stretch breakdowns we've just had, things are a significantly BETTER, not worse.

if there's something beyond a simple bad luck clustering, the start would seem to logically consider the rain and flux of track conditions. Unfortunately that isn't an area I expect the tracks to flex. Otherwise, we could have weather like this meet and constantly cancel and reschedule cards and stakes days to a point where it would threaten to damage the meet financially almost as bad a worst case scenario such as these breakdowns.

Even with consideration of the rain, off tracks, track drainage, etc... it's a multi-faceted thing. If you watch New York Thunder's Amsterdam, other than running a big fig, his footwork and stretch run was not pretty. I had some negative notes on him although I did not wager on the Jerkens. Unless something comes up negative on a vet exam however, you can't start scratching stakes winners because of less than pretty way of going.

[Sheffwed]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

three times seems inaccurate. Maybe three more. Three times? Are you sure?

I think the breakdowns per meet have averaged about 12 or so per year. up to 21 a couple years. Not sure if the majority of those has somehow been in training, but I'm pretty sure there isn't 45 total breakdowns or something this year.

Surprise me with the tally.

I believe Saratoga is at about 3.0 this meet

Here’s what is normal/typical - actually 3.0 is almost TEN times more than synthetic, yes you read that right

Saratoga this season has been almost ten times more dangerous than synthetic

https://www.jockeyclub.com/default.a...=10&story=1390

[Tom]

Originally Posted by Sheffwed

Three times as many deaths on track this Safatoga meet than any of the last ten years

Source, data?

[Sheffwed]

Originally Posted by Tom

Source, data?

roughly 3700 horses have run this season (someone else can verify this I'm sure)

12 have died

that's pretty much 3 per 1000 runners, perhaps slightly more

[Sheffwed]

Originally Posted by Sheffwed

roughly 3700 horses have run this season (someone else can verify this I'm sure)

12 have died

that's pretty much 3 per 1000 runners, perhaps slightly more

the numbers are even worse apparently

https://twitter.com/foxhound6/status...756419445?s=20

[cj]

Originally Posted by Sheffwed

the numbers are even worse apparently

https://twitter.com/foxhound6/status...756419445?s=20

The rain is probably a factor. It would be quite a coincidence if it is not.

That said, these are very small sample sizes when you are talking about "per 1,000 starts." Nobody wants to hear this, but it could just be bad luck. I still think it is the rain though.