Probe f inds no smoking gun
Report by California board finds no overriding reason for the spike in fatalities at Santa Anita.
Report says that 21 of 23 Santa Anita horse fatalities investigated were tied to preexisting conditions.
The California Horse Racing Board’s investigation into the fatalities last year at Santa Anita validated many of the prevalent theories as to why there was a spike in deaths but found no smoking gun or overriding reason for what happened.
Although the 76-page report did not absolve the track, trainers or the model that drives the sport, it did confirm the long-held belief that most breakdowns resulting in the death of a horse were tied to preexisting conditions. This was the case in 21 of the 23 horses whose necropsies were examined.
New diagnostic equipment has been brought in to
Santa Anita but it’s unclear how many of the injuries could have been prevented had the horses been scanned.
“In general, a lot of the pathology that is preexisting stays asymptomatic even if you could find it with diagnostic imaging,” said Tim Grande, one of the veterinarians who worked on the investigation.
Rick Arthur, equine medical director of the CHRB who also helped write the report, believed that nine of the lesions that eventually led to a breakdown could have been found had the new PET scan equipment been in place.
Overtraining during a horse’s career was cited multiple times as a possible contributing factor to the deaths.
“We’ve known for a number of years that work [outs] per starts are much higher here than in the rest of the country,” Arthur said. “Horses are trained harder and have more high-speed workouts.”
The trainers were criticized for poor record keeping and a lack of knowledge about the anatomy of horses or curiosity about necropsies. Also found were several cases of program training, a practice in which someone other than the licensed trainer was overseeing the training of a horse.
“One of the most disappointing aspects is how few trainers had reviewed their necropsy reports before sitting down with [investigators],” Arthur said.
The board plans to investigate seven instances of improper record keeping by trainers and three of license violations.
The report suggested that Santa Anita “should continue to consider replacing the dirt track with a synthetic surface,” because it holds up better when it rains.
Dr. Greg Ferraro, chairman of the CHRB, did not believe the board will mandate synthetics.
Santa Anita brought in Mick Peterson, considered the country’s leading expert of racing surfaces, during last year’s crisis. At the time he said he could find nothing wrong with the dirt track. The report tells a different story, saying that Peterson told investigators that the “track was not consistent due to the complex maintenance decisions made by track management” during the heavy rain period.
The report also said that trainers felt pressured by the track to run their horses, although only one trainer could give a specific example.
No trainers or horses were named in the detailed analysis of each death, citing state confidentiality statues, however the date of each incident made it clear which horse was detailed.
There were 16 key findings, many a curation of data from necropsies. The study was confined to the 23 deaths between Dec. 30, 2018, and March 31, 2019. Seven more horses died during the track’s winter-spring meeting. When the track reopened for its one-month fall meeting there were seven deaths, including Mongolian Groom in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, the biggest race of the year for older horses.
This year there have been nine fatalities, compared with 21 to this date last year. However, Santa Anita is running fewer races and has a smaller horse population.
The CHRB report outlined 47 recommendations, 12 of which are already in the regulatory pipeline. Most dealt with establishing protocols for training, racing and when to cancel racing, moving toward digital record keeping and transparency in medical records.
“The long-term goal of the board is to follow up on the recommendations,” Ferraro said.