Comprehensive equine H&S recommendations in NY.

[curious]

We are light years behind in equine welfare.

A review released July 31 by the office of New York State Gaming Commission equine medical director Dr. Scott Palmer examined 17 equine fatalities at Saratoga Race Course last summer and generated a series of recommendations. 

Since last summer's breakdowns, which the NYSGC said took place during unprecedented inclement weather at Saratoga, safer racing has ensued there and at other Thoroughbred racing venues operated by the New York Racing Association. Equine fatalities across the country have also dropped since the full implementation of Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority rules.

Some of the key NYSGC recommendations, which the regulator has posted online with its full review, include:

 

 

• Use of objective real-time measurements of the racing surfaces to monitor the variability of moisture content.
• Real-time testing of the composition of the racing surface to detect loss of fine materials.
• Installation of a synthetic racing surface at Saratoga, presumably to complement its turf and dirt courses, to provide a safe racing surface and maintain field size when races are moved off the grass.
• Require attending veterinarian exams before high-speed exercise and veterinarian's list horses to be examined before workouts, whether currently on the list or in the past.
• Use of HISA data to generate an epidemiologic risk factor report that will quantify risk for individual horses—information that can be shared with trainers to obtain a current real-time risk assessment for their horses.
• Modify the HISA intra-articular injection reporting system and improve compliance for reporting medication to HISA.
• Create a requirement to report nonfatal musculoskeletal injuries to HISA and provide a convenient and reliable electronic system for the accurate reporting of nonfatal injuries.
• Modify the racing necropsy standard operating procedure for use in horses that perish in New York to consistently reflect the appropriate level of detail to determine the presence of pre-existing orthopedic conditions.
• Join with the ongoing study in progress in Kentucky and Virginia by placing sensors on all horses racing at NYRA racetracks to identify horses that are candidates for a lameness examination and routine or advanced imaging.
• Have New York racing stakeholders invest in a comprehensive equine safety program that includes the acquisition of advanced imaging equipment (positron emission tomography scanner and a standing computed tomography scanner) to be located at the Cornell Ruffian Equine Specialists adjacent to Belmont Park.
• Improve the NYRA ship-in protocol (a NYRA house rule) to require that no horse can attempt high-speed exercise over a NYRA racing or training surface prior to notification of the racing office of their intention to do so.
• Add procedures to allow notifications to prevent horses that are on the veterinarian's list in other jurisdictions from training on a NYRA property prior to examination by a NYRA regulatory veterinarian.

The NYGSC report indicated that its recommendations are being developed or are to be considered.

"Dr. Scott Palmer's analysis of the 2023 summer meet at Saratoga Race Course enhances our understanding of the myriad factors that contribute to equine injuries sustained during training or racing," said Pat McKenna, vice president of communications for NYRA. "Continuously improving equine safety is an organizational imperative at NYRA that motivates all aspects of the operation and informs every decision around the evolving training and racing infrastructure at both Saratoga Race Course and Belmont Park. That's why NYRA is embracing all-weather surfaces, biometric wearable technology, artificial intelligence and advanced equine imaging to further mitigate risk and ensure the safest possible environment for racing and training. NYRA thanks Dr. Palmer and the New York State Gaming Commission for investing the time and resources necessary to develop a comprehensive review of the 2023 summer meet."

[Chief Stipe]

5 minutes ago, curious said:

• Use of objective real-time measurements of the racing surfaces to monitor the variability of moisture content.
• Real-time testing of the composition of the racing surface to detect loss of fine materials.

Do you think this is happening on the AWT's?

[Murray Fish]

3 hours ago, curious said:

That's why NYRA is embracing all-weather surfaces, biometric wearable technology, artificial intelligence and advanced equine imaging to further mitigate risk and ensure the safest possible environment for racing and training.

the future her now...

How does Au? or Hk? stack up?

3 hours ago, curious said:

Use of HISA data to generate an epidemiologic risk factor report that will quantify risk for individual horses—information that can be shared with trainers to obtain a current real-time risk assessment for their horses.

fascinating..

as ever, Data more and more coming into play, then of course it is 'who owns' that data and who has access to it. who is driving it strategically?
..perhaps also, what happen if microsoft breaks down.. 

[Chief Stipe]

Nothing better than a Turf track.

[curious]

4 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Nothing better than a Turf track.

Looks like they are recognising there that synthetics are some times safer.

[Chief Stipe]

15 minutes ago, curious said:

Looks like they are recognising there that synthetics are some times safer.

But what type of Synthetic?  Plus how much grooming is required?  For example do we groom our AWT between races?

[Freda]

10 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

But what type of Synthetic?  Plus how much grooming is required?  For example do we groom our AWT between races?

Good points.   And no to the last.

[Freda]

17 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

Do you think this is happening on the AWT's?

Unlikely.

[Freda]

11 hours ago, curious said:

Looks like they are recognising there that synthetics are some times safer.

They do seem safer than dirt, certainly.

Curious will have the data - it also seems that Tapeta is the preferred option of synthetic.

Edited August 1 by Freda

[curious]

2 hours ago, Freda said:

They do seem safer than dirt, certainly.

Curious will have the data - it also seems that Tapeta is the preferred option of synthetic.

Safer than turf too based on catastrophic injury data (US).

In the Jockey Club Equine Injury Database (EID) for the year 2022, injuries on dirt were 1.44 per 1,000 horse starts. Turf injuries were 0.99 per 1,000.  Injuries on synthetic were vastly diminished with 0.41 per 1000. This data shows that synthetic surfaces are 3.5 times safer than dirt and 2.2 times safer than turf. These statistics are compelling in showing the exponential safety of today's synthetic surfaces over dirt and turf.

[curious]

2017 INJURY STATISTICS FOR NORTH AMERICA

Racetrack	Percentage
Woodbine (Tapeta)	.63%
All Synthetic Surfaces	1.1%
Turf	1.36%
Dirt	1.74%

Source: USA Jockey Club Injury Database

[curious]

13 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

But what type of Synthetic?  Plus how much grooming is required?  For example do we groom our AWT between races?

The NYRA have gone with Tapeta. https://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/nyra-winter-racing-to-be-all-tapeta-by-2026/

[Chief Stipe]

3 hours ago, curious said:

2017 INJURY STATISTICS FOR NORTH AMERICA

Racetrack	Percentage
Woodbine (Tapeta)	.63%
All Synthetic Surfaces	1.1%
Turf	1.36%
Dirt	1.74%

Source: USA Jockey Club Injury Database

Has that data accounted for confounding variables?

[Chief Stipe]

3 hours ago, curious said:

Safer than turf too based on catastrophic injury data (US).

In the Jockey Club Equine Injury Database (EID) for the year 2022, injuries on dirt were 1.44 per 1,000 horse starts. Turf injuries were 0.99 per 1,000.  Injuries on synthetic were vastly diminished with 0.41 per 1000. This data shows that synthetic surfaces are 3.5 times safer than dirt and 2.2 times safer than turf. These statistics are compelling in showing the exponential safety of today's synthetic surfaces over dirt and turf.

Again has that data accounted for confounding variables?

[curious]

2 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

Again has that data accounted for confounding variables?

Such as?

[Freda]

Okay, I'll wade into this topic - fully prepared to be shot down.    Fed the horses, nothing to do for the next hour.

US data compelling, although I am presuming, in all cases, the track/surface preparations are as close to perfection as could reasonably be in practice.  Otherwise, the data would be meaningless.  IMO.  [ and I'm no statistician].

In our case, here in NZ, we have no comparable data, or none that I have seen anyway.

We can remove dirt as one parameter as we don't use it.

So, we have synthetic, which is ALL polytrack with no Tapeta as an alternative to compare, vs turf.

Is the synthetic presented at its optimum?  do we have any idea wrt that?   there is already evidence from the Kempton Park conversation, that the 'top' is 50mm less here than there, for example; and turf, with variations ranging from rock hard, shifty, too much grass, not enough, slippery, rough, full of holes, patchy, wet, gluey, sticky, heavy, bottomless and combinations of the above.

How that can be assessed or compared with any accuracy is beyond me.

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, Freda said:

How that can be assessed or compared with any accuracy is beyond me.

Agreed.  Then there are other confounding variables to account for such as class of race, age of horses,  frequency of individual horse races, season and so on.

[curious]

10 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

Agreed.  Then there are other confounding variables to account for such as class of race, age of horses,  frequency of individual horse races, season and so on.

I think you'll find that dozens of studies all show the same thing and confounding variables such as you mention have been investigated in various of those, though we are relying on averages of each track type here and Freda's point about differences between individual tracks can't truly be accounted for. In NZ and Oz there's not enough events per track to get a decent sample size and there is still day to day variation in those.

Work has been done though in meta analyses that attempts to account for the multifactorial nature of race track injuries in epidemiological modelling. That includes age and age at first start, sex, race class, first starts, number of starts and number of gallops, cumulative distance worked and raced, track surface type and track condition, race distance, and field size.

While there is variance in findings, I know of no studies that show turf to be safer than AWTs  and the AWT data continues to improve. Generally, most studies show the opposite and are reported with p-values and confidence intervals. The below is probably typical of contemporary findings.

[curious]

When I say that the synthetic data continues to improve due to improvements in surface composition and management, if you look at the Woodbine Tapeta data above from 2017, it shows a fatal injury incidence of .63%, nearly twice as safe as the synthetic average. The 2022 figures from Woodbine show a raceday incidence now of .42%.

While horses throughout North America broke down on the dirt at a rate of 1.44 per 1,000 starts in 2023, the rate of breakdowns over the synthetic surface at Woodbine was 0.42. This year, after about 4,500 starts over Tapeta there have been only two fatalities during races. Also, there have been about 14,000 published workouts over Woodbine's synthetic tracks and only two fatalities there.

Edited August 3 by curious

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, curious said:

When I say that the synthetic data continues to improve due to improvements in surface composition and management, if you look at the Woodbine Tapeta data above from 2017, it shows a fatal injury incidence of .63%, nearly twice as safe as the synthetic average. The 2022 figures from Woodbine show a raceday incidence now of .42%

@curious what does "raceday incidence" mean?  1 in 200 racedays?  1 in 200 races?  1 in 200 imdividual horses?  1 in 200 horse starts?

[curious]

2 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

@curious what does "raceday incidence" mean?  1 in 200 racedays?  1 in 200 races?  1 in 200 imdividual horses?  1 in 200 horse starts?

Incidence of fatalities on racedays (variously defined as racedays only up to 72 hours post racing). As opposed to injuries otherwise from gallops or other work. It's per horse start. So 4500 individual starters in the above data.

[Chief Stipe]

14 minutes ago, curious said:

Incidence of fatalities on racedays (variously defined as racedays only up to 72 hours post racing). As opposed to injuries otherwise from gallops or other work. It's per horse start. So 4500 individual starters in the above data.

So if those 4,500 horses all races on Tapeta there were 22 fatalities?  Seems a lot.  Of course they would have accounted for the confounding variable that some of those horses would have raced on both Turf and Artificial.

Quite frankly, although I haven't seen the raw data, I suspect that the comparisons are somewhat biased and skewed.

Doesn't Woodbine claim they have one of the safest turf tracks?

[curious]

15 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

So if those 4,500 horses all races on Tapeta there were 22 fatalities?  Seems a lot.  Of course they would have accounted for the confounding variable that some of those horses would have raced on both Turf and Artificial.

Quite frankly, although I haven't seen the raw data, I suspect that the comparisons are somewhat biased and skewed.

Doesn't Woodbine claim they have one of the safest turf tracks?

Read again. "after about 4,500 starts over Tapeta there have been only two fatalities during races" That's 2, not 22. It's only on the Tapeta.

Yes, they do have one of the safest turf tracks but nowhere near as safe as the main Tapeta track.

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, curious said:

Read again. "after about 4,500 starts over Tapeta there have been only two fatalities during races" That's 2, not 22. It's only on the Tapeta.

Yes, they do have one of the safest turf tracks but nowhere near as safe as the main Tapeta track.

 

5 hours ago, curious said:

The 2022 figures from Woodbine show a raceday incidence now of .42%.

0.42% of 4,500 is 18.9.  I rounded up to 0.5 because it is roughly midway between 0.42% and 0.63%.

That's 18.9 not 1.89.

[Chief Stipe]

17 hours ago, curious said:

I think you'll find that dozens of studies all show the same thing and confounding variables such as you mention have been investigated in various of those, though we are relying on averages of each track type here and Freda's point about differences between individual tracks can't truly be accounted for. In NZ and Oz there's not enough events per track to get a decent sample size and there is still day to day variation in those.

Work has been done though in meta analyses that attempts to account for the multifactorial nature of race track injuries in epidemiological modelling. That includes age and age at first start, sex, race class, first starts, number of starts and number of gallops, cumulative distance worked and raced, track surface type and track condition, race distance, and field size.

While there is variance in findings, I know of no studies that show turf to be safer than AWTs  and the AWT data continues to improve. Generally, most studies show the opposite and are reported with p-values and confidence intervals. The below is probably typical of contemporary findings.

What is the cite?