And sometime after the Derby, CD put out this "says a lot but means nothing" release.  If they're going to "to provide the safest racing environment each and every day" they would have switched to Tapeta.  Good luck with that..

Exactly right.  Platitudes. 

Also have to laugh at how they name-dropped HISA "we'll work with them"... a week after HISA was delayed so as to not affect the TC.  Talking out both sides of their mouth.

We all knew that CD track was bad.  I've never been to Laurel so I can't comment on it, but CD looks as bad as Laurel in the public eye.  And as much as the optics being bad with 2 horses dying on the track but not due to breakdowns, yeah, it sure looks like Saffie was scapegoated.  As if Saffie is the guy who orders the maintenance team to scrape and roll the track hard.  (He isn't).  I won't speculate on what they'll find out is wrong with his stable [the part about meds found in his barn is just rumor at this point].

Let's assume nothing was wrong with Lord Miles as he was "guilty by association" and nothing else.  So that's 4 horses out of 23 original entrants scratched due to illness or lameness.   And these are supposed to be the best of this year's crop, the most fit 3-year-olds at time of entry?  Something's up and it can't be Saffie's fault, not even close. They all went bad after less than a week on the grounds?  You don't usually get that many scratches out of a race unless it's a turf race taken off during a torrential downpour and most of the field can't handle mud.

Isn't most of the breakdown Deaths on days when the track isn't scraped and rolled hard and do you

know any Data on those death days if they had raced on days when it was rolled and hard  and the 

new chute and that bend they made wider this year. I haven't followed it like you and can't remember

everything that information director they talk to every year , maybe Rogers, was bragging about the changes

they made could be part of the problem.

I don't recall the chute (or any other part of the track) widened at all. Still the same configuration it's been for years (otherwise Secretariat's track record would be "locked in" and new records recorded...)

Also wouldn't know when they'd roll the track hard if not Oaks day.  Given they ran stakes all week, maybe as early as Tuesday?

Horses can be fit and still come up ill.  Practical Move and Skinner could have gotten ill through travel?  Hard to know, wonder about Reincarnate too.

Forte sounds like it was weird step or stone, sustained a bruise.....and Continuar seems to have not acclimated after his travel.

Don't really think it's a statement on the crop. 

In order for real reform to place in US racing the powers-that-be will need to decide to bite the bullet and undergo some pain to get to the other side - a squeaky clean sport.  The NHPBA resistance and outright obstruction to HISA/HIWU is a perfect example.  

The problem is, they fear losing handle more than losing the social license to continue to operate the sport.

The fiasco at Churchill this past week is an example of the end game when you only have band-aids while patient is bleeding out.  The suits have their eyes on the dollars while the general public has it eyes on the carnage.  It's ludicrous to suggest Saffie Joseph being rendered void solves the problem - the core problem of corruption in the sport.  That's whether he's guilty of something nefarious or just the latest scapegoat to create appearance of "doing something".

In my opinion, the sport will be reinvigorated if the powers-that-be can even agree to put the horses safety and welfare above all.  Not just lip service like CDI just served up and what Belinda and her team served up at Laurel.

princeofdoc said...

Horses can be fit and still come up ill.  Practical Move and Skinner could have gotten ill through travel?  Hard to know, wonder about Reincarnate too.

Forte sounds like it was weird step or stone, sustained a bruise.....and Continuar seems to have not acclimated after his travel.

Don't really think it's a statement on the crop. 

Sort of the reasons I would never take my new puppy to a "dog park".    I have learned over the years from my veterinarians just how much of a risk it is.   I would set up a play group with KNOWN temperments and KNOWN (well cared for) dogs and find a field somewhere. 

Plus the facilities at most US tracks, as has been pointed out, is not exactly luxurious.   Horses like Derma and Continuar probably thought they were "slumming it" compared to the kind of accomodations they are used to where they hail from  

May 14th, CD,  Rio Moon, a Dale Roman's horse, suffered a fatal injury on the gallop out and had to be euthanized. 

https://www.equibase.com/static/chart/pdf/CD051423USA6.pdf