Reconsidering Synthetics After Churchill Safety Issues

Dirt racing is safer than at any time on record, but still three times more dangerous than synthetics.

The Jockey Club's Equine Injury Database shows dirt racing resulted in 1.44 equine fatalities per 1,000 starts last year, the lowest rate in the EID's 14-year history. Yet because synthetic tracks simultaneously recorded a 0.41 fatality rate, the safety gap between the two surfaces is wider than ever. 

Overall, progress is plain. Pre-race scrutiny is more stringent, new regulations more restrictive, and fewer horses per start have died during racing than at any time since the database was launched in 2009. Still, racing continues to suffer from the profound image problems posed by equine fatalities and remains slow to embrace change that would appear to make compelling statistical sense.

Nine North American tracks had synthetic surfaces as recently as 2009. Only five do now, with a sixth planned for Belmont Park in 2024. When that surface is added, Belmont will join Gulfstream Park in offering dirt, turf, and synthetic racing.

"We are an industry of ostriches," said Bill Casner, former chairman of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association. "People want to bury their heads. They don't want to recognize our problems. They want everything to continue and that's not going to happen.

"It's an opportune time. Drastic times require drastic changes. We're struggling for survival right now."

Casner, who co-owned WinStar Farm when it campaigned 2010 Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Super Saver  , is a synthetics advocate of long-standing whose arguments were echoed recently by owner and former New York Racing Commission chairman Earle Mack and, at least temporarily, by NBC's Donna Barton Brothers.

"We must abandon old norms and embrace new practices that prioritize the safety and welfare of our noble equine athletes," Mack wrote in an op/ed piece for TDN. "The benefits of synthetic tracks are not mere conjecture; they are a proven truth. Their superior safety record and fewer injuries make their adoption not just an option but an ethical imperative."

"Mack is right," Brothers tweeted June 1. "And it has to begin with Churchill Downs. If those of us in the twilight of our long and successful careers in horse racing don't push for change, the younger generations following us will find themselves at a dead end."

Five days later, the former jockey announced she had backtracked based on additional input, saying, "More can be done by deepening the surface and even measuring HRV (Heart Rate Variability) in horses."

Supporting evidence that dirt can rival synthetics can be found at Del Mar, Keeneland, and Santa Anita Park, which initially experienced above-average mortality rates after abandoning synthetic surfaces (Santa Anita's to an alarming extent), but have lately demonstrated dirt tracks need not be as problematic. Though the EID database does not include those horses that died from training breakdowns, the three tracks totaled only one racing fatality on dirt last year in 6,406 starts—a 0.16 per 1,000 starts fatality rate.

This nearly mirrors the success of the new Tapeta track at Gulfstream, which lost one horse in 7,085 synthetic starts in 2022, a 0.14 fatality rate. Del Mar, in fact, has not lost a horse in a dirt race since 2020.

"One's too many, but it's been awfully good," Del Mar CEO Joe Harper said. "The only way you can calm the media is to stop killing horses and I think we've gone to great lengths to do that."

Harper was quick to endorse the safety advantages of synthetics when they were initially introduced, and he refused to make changes to the track despite a 2007 shouting match with Ahmed Zayat, later the owner of American Pharoah  . But the inconsistency of Del Mar's Polytrack surface between morning workouts and afternoon racing, its gradual deterioration, and Santa Anita's switch back to dirt helped persuade Harper to rethink his position. He attributes Del Mar's recent safety record to new screening protocols and procedures that have discouraged owners and trainers from racing at-risk horses.

"The sound ones don't break down," Harper said. "It's the ones that have a (pre-existing) problem. We figured, 'Let's take a harder look at them.' We put a whole bunch of veterinarians out on the racetrack to watch these horses. That went a long way to changing the culture, with horsemen putting in healthy horses, not 'I can get one more out of him.'"

Perhaps it's a coincidence, but Kentucky veterinary records show a recent spike in pre-race scratches at Churchill Downs, Keeneland, and Turfway Park. Turfway vets scratched 128 horses during the track's 2023 winter meet, more than twice the previous year's total. More recently, when morning-line favorite Forte  was scratched on the morning of the 2023 Kentucky Derby (G1), trainer Todd Pletcher attributed the decision to the heightened vigilance of veterinarians.

"It's a tough call," Pletcher said. "Obviously we are in an environment (where) scrutiny is super high. I'm not sure in some years it would have been an issue. But this year it was."

Considering the fatalities that followed—two on the Derby undercard; 12 total in a month-long span at Churchill Downs—it was hard to argue against abundant caution. Still, there's a segment within racing who regard the sport as inherently risky, equine death as its inevitable byproduct, and synthetic tracks as an ill-advised attempt to appease animal welfare organizations.

"The number (of deaths) will never be zero and bad timing is always going to offset even the biggest of improvements," said retired trainer Charles Simon, host of the Going In Circles podcast. "Those that scream racing is inhumane won't be swayed by less injuries. This is without even going into the impact (synthetic tracks) will have on the bloodstock market/breeding industry and racing's wagering customers or the huge expense that many of the lower-tier tracks would incur installing a synthetic track."

Granted, those costs can be considerable. Casner said Tapeta Footings president Michael Dickinson estimated it could cost up to $10 million to replace Churchill Downs' dirt track with his tenth iteration of Tapeta. And though that price tag pales in comparison to the $1.1 billion Churchill Downs Inc. lost in market cap between the Derby and the first trading day after announcing the spring meet's move to Ellis Park, few tracks could easily absorb that expense. 

"I believe, based on all the data I've seen that Tapeta 10 is state of the art, the safest racing surface commercially available," said Jeff Platt, president of the Horseplayers Association of North America. "But it's also not cheap and you also have to upgrade every few years. That's a huge investment (and) the industry is not creating new customers at the same rate it was even 10 years ago."

The fear articulated by numerous horsemen is that equine fatalities drive customers away and provide ammunition to those who would shut down the sport. The recurring question is whether industry insiders who object to synthetics might be hastening racing's demise.

"We tend to take a long time to change our minds in horse racing, don't we?" said Joan Wakefield, vice president of Tapeta Footings. "My concern is if something doesn't happen, I don't know where it will leave the industry, frankly."

"I have friends who are not horseplayers," said Platt. "A very close friend of mine told me, 'How do you reconcile horse deaths at Churchill Downs? How are you any different than Michael Vick supporting dog fighting?' ... It stings a little bit, and how do you reconcile that? Look at what happened to dog racing. They got it on the ballot and it had no chance. In any state in the U.S., a guy like me would be vastly outnumbered by everybody else."

Most days, Thoroughbred racing more closely resembles a plutocracy than it does a democracy, and the interests of the rich and powerful are not always aligned with those of the Average Joe or, indeed, with each other. Though the perception persists that those heavily invested in dirt stallions proved a formidable obstacle to synthetics and its use at the Breeders' Cup, Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association president Dan Metzger said that characterization was "a bit unfair," and that his organization had taken no formal position regarding synthetics.

"We have long maintained that any decisions on track surface material are entirely the business of the racetrack," a Breeders' Cup spokeswoman said. "Our standards for site selection require that host tracks maintain surfaces that are safe, fair, and consistent, and we work with host tracks and industry experts to ensure those goals are being met."

Multiple messages left for Churchill Downs executives were not immediately returned.

"Churchill is the pivot because of the Kentucky Derby," Casner said. "There has been a resistance by the traditionalists to change that surface because it's always been dirt. (But) What does that matter if the Kentucky Derby goes away, which it very well could?

"There was a bill introduced in California to ban horse racing. It didn't gain traction at that time, but that you even have that kind of dialogue is terrifying."