This is my Frankly Speaking column from today's (March 12) issue of BloodHorse Daily. If you haven't already downloaded the app or subscribed to the free BloodHorse Daily , you should. I didn't get far into the California Horse Racing Board's assessment of the spike in Thoroughbred fatalities last year at Santa Anita Park before I came across a recommendation that I most assuredly agreed with. It also...
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The initial equine fatality numbers for Southern California since March 29, when the tracks and racing regulator put sweeping reforms in place, are encouraging. While more numbers are needed before declaring any statistical significance, to date the rate of catastrophic injury during racing at Del Mar, Los Alamitos Race Course, and Santa Anita Park is below the national average of 2018 (the most recent...
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Sometimes it's worthwhile to just look at all the places the pari-mutuel dollar goes in racing. With that in mind, I've returned to the well-done California Horse Racing Board annual report for fiscal year 2015-16, which breaks down where every pari-mutuel wagering dollar goes in the state. Of the $2.9 billion wagered on California racing in the fiscal year, $2.3 billion, or 79%, was returned to winning...
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While it’s a small sample size, horses reported to receive steroid administrations in 2016 in California who have come back to race fared very well in their first starts after those treatments, winning at about three times the normal rate. Looking at the reported anabolic steroid administrations in 2016 in California, 16 times horses have raced after receiving one of those treatments (through Dec....
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