Santa Anita Injuries; Trainers meet, complain

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Riot

I completely disagree.

I don't understand how you can say on one hand research is underfunded and needed, then dismiss it out of hand saying one will never be able to reach any useful conclusions.

Dr. Mary Scollary is trying to collect detailed information, but some won't participate.

All the examples I listed are topics that sportsmedicine has looked at, and within each topic one path leads to increased breakdowns, and taking a different path doesn't. Yes, sportsmedicine has helped decrease breakdown rates.

You are right, breakdowns have multiple causes. That doesn't mean we can't start to figure out the contributors.

Yes, I'm glad KHRC is releasing the numbers, and being open about how many occur. I sure don't look at them as "experts" on breakdown causality.

I hate to tell you but we already know the vast majority of WHY horses breakdown. Because they are made of flesh and blood!

How has sports medicine helped decrease breakdown rates when we dont even have accurate numbers now let alone from years ago?

This is all bs. Despite the medical advances, horses still get hurt and as evidenced by the chaos in reporting the breakdowns in CA and Turfway there isnt any real advances in decreasing these rates.

Releasing the numbers is a terrible idea. There is nothing to be gained from it on either side. If the numbers go down then the tracks crow that they have a safe track and the rules are correct. If the numbers spike, everybody wrings hands and adjusts rules and come up with theories. Nothing positive is being reported to a general public that has little understanding of the issue.

We can report all the injuries that they can record but each and everyone is different. We dont even know how or when many of these injuries occur. The subject is far too broad to be able to narrow it to a few things.

The fact that human judgement is involved makes the regulation part flawed just as human judgement is. Mary Scollay has great intentions and is a nice lady. She should keep the numbers to herself until she has finished her study because getting this out of the publics eyes is in the best interests of horseracing until there are conclusions (even though those conclusions will be as murky in detail as most studies on thoroughbreds)