The Week in Review: Proactivity Needs to Drive “New Normal” for Safety

With its main track deemed safe enough to reopen for light training on Monday, Santa Anita Park is on the cusp of a “new normal” in terms of equine safety precautions. Although racetrackers in general are averse to the “new” part of anything, you'd be surprised how quickly the normality aspect can become a seamless part of daily routine.

We will likely never know the exact reasons or correlations linking the 21 Thoroughbred deaths at Santa Anita since Dec. 26 because the multi-factorial nature of the problem defies easy explanation.

The recent deluge of rain and the composition and maintenance of the track are obvious starting points. Trainers and track management attempting to leverage as much practical use as possible out of a years-in-decline national horse population is another relevant angle.

Farther out on the periphery–but still very much a valid part of the equation–are all the bigger-picture issues the sport has been struggling with for decades, like equine drug use, the overall speed-centric direction and soundness of the breed, and whether or not synthetic racing surfaces are safer than dirt.

A statistician might tell you that the recent spike in fatalities could just be attributed to a bad run of numbers within a very large data set. That makes mathematic sense, too. But theoretical explanations rarely go over well when stakeholders and the public all want definitive answers that can be articulated in quick sound bites or tidily summed up in news feeds, with blame pinned squarely on something tangible.

The changes implemented by The Stronach Group, which owns Santa Anita, include a new provision requiring 24-hour advance notice from trainers who intend to work a horse, with a newly hired team of veterinarians identifying “at-risk” horses that might require intervention. In addition, veterinarians will observe all horses entering and exiting the track each morning during training, and a newly created Director of Equine Welfare will head a new Rapid Response team for injuries.

A new house rule will require each horse's veterinary records to follow that horse through any trainer or ownership change, claim, or private sale. Track maintenance procedures will be tweaked so there is less compacting and sealing of the track in advance of heavy rain, and more consideration will be given to calling off racing based on adverse forecasts when the meet resumes Mar. 22.

Beyond Santa Anita, the racing nation is wondering if what is happening in Southern California will spur true safety reform at racetracks all around the country.

Other notable spikes in racehorse deaths over the past decade–at Aqueduct in 2012, Del Mar in 2016, Saratoga in 2017–have all been met with some degree of jurisdictional response that has gradually shaped equine safety for the better.

But the one common thread among those collective responses is that they have all been reactionary. A serious problem popped up, and steps were taken to rectify it.

If you're searching for the answer to the long-term “true reform” question, don't focus microscopically on Santa Anita in the near future.

The more meaningful indicator that systemic change is under way will come when a track that is currently experiencing near-zero catastrophic injuries steps up and implements a new and robust program of equine safety protocols. Proactivity, not reactivity, needs to be the driver of a nationwide “new normal.”

International Women's Day

Under new ownership, Colonial Downs will run its first meet this summer in six years. With a boutique, turf-centric 15-date season that is expected to double to 30 race dates in 2020, the Virginia track is poised to be a significant national presence in the years to come.

Last Friday was International Women's Day. But Colonial Downs Group doesn't seem to need a recognized date on the calendar to guide hiring choices that will put more women in positions of power within its management hierarchy and among its contractors.

Last autumn, in what was quite possibly a racing industry first, Colonial hired an all-female design firm, Within Interior Design, Inc., of Norfolk, Virginia, to renovate the 21-year-old facility, which will now include a newly licensed historical horse race (HHR) gaming section.

At the time, John Marshall, Colonial's senior vice president and general manager, told TDN that “We understand that our main demographic for HHR business is going to be predominantly females 55-years-plus. The challenge that we posed to Within was to consider this job as designing a sports bar for women. What would it look like? So we are going to lean toward feminine design in a lot of ways.”

In January, Colonial hired Jill Byrne, a well-respected industry executive and on-air racing personality, to be the track's new vice president of racing.

And just last week, Colonial announced the hiring of racing secretary Allison De Luca, who has served in the same capacity Tampa Bay Downs since 2006 (a Colonial spokeswoman confirmed that De Luca will work both jobs because the race meets do not conflict).

De Luca has worked various racing office and officiating gigs across the country since 1978, including being the assistant racing secretary at Churchill Downs and the stakes coordinator at Keeneland Race Course.

When De Luca was hired in 1987 for a five-year stint as the racing secretary at now-defunct Sportsman's Park in Illinois, she was reported to be the first woman in the country to be named racing secretary at a commercial track.

It's the thought that counts…

As a TwinSpires online wagering customer, I'm still trying to figure out the confounding and (in my opinion) very user-unfriendly interface that the advance-deposit wagering (ADW) company forced upon users back in December. I guess the first paragraph of this column about racetrackers being crankily resistant to anything new applies to me in this instance.

But last week TwinSpires rolled out several intriguing incentives designed to compensate horseplayers who suffer bad beats or unfortunate racing luck, and both are good moves.

The rewards equate to short money in terms of what an individual bettor might get back. But in an era where so-called whales reap the majority of rebates and incentives, it's nice to see smaller-scale players getting money back (that will very likely end up churned into future bets anyway).

On Mar. 5, TwinSpires debuted the “Bad Luck Board,” which, according to a press release, “will meet each week following key race dates to determine a horse that we think should either be refunded or be paid out as if it won.”

The first Bad Luck Board cash award was credited to the accounts of horseplayers who backed fourth-place Hidden Scroll (Hard Spun) in the Mar. 2 GII Fountain of Youth S. So if you wagered on Hidden Scroll to win (capped at a $10 bet), you got a $22 credit, equivalent to what a $10 win bet would have paid had Hidden Scroll not gotten cooked in a speed duel before fading in the stretch.

Some of the immediate-reaction internet chatter about the promotion focused on whether Hidden Scroll's botched-tactics loss actually constituted “bad luck,” but that's not the point. Keeping smaller-scale players from getting discouraged and tapped out is the aim of the program, which welcomes social media input from customers on which races or horses should be considered for the credit.

“The marketing team is always looking for new ways to return money to our horseplayers,” said TwinSpires promotions director Bethani White. “It's tough to stomach when the gates open and your race is over on the first jump–a potential scenario where we might refund your bet.”

A similar “Jump Insurance” promotion will apply to international steeplechase races at this week's Cheltenham festival (pre-bet opt-in required). TwinSpires will refund win wagers at up to $5 per race if a backed horse does not finish the race.