So....4 horses broke down today at Hollywood Park

[bdw0617]

4. oaklawn did not have 4 breakdowns the entire meet last year. nor did saratoga. hollywood park had 4 breakdowns on freaking thanksgiving, hollywood prevue day, with one of them being in the hollywood prevue.

[Bast]

4. oaklawn did not have 4 breakdowns the entire meet last year. nor did saratoga. hollywood park had 4 breakdowns on freaking thanksgiving, hollywood prevue day, with one of them being in the hollywood prevue.

I pulled up the day's Hollywood charts, which describe only one horse as breaking down. Another is listed as refusing to break.

What information is missing from the charts?

http://www.equibase.com/static/chart/pdf/HOL112411USA.pdf

[wangkw]

I dont know how good this unfortunate runner..maybe trainer, owner and jockey all broke down and cried...that makes 4.

[louis finochio]

The recent rains have made the HP track unsafe, HP closed the track a few days ago because the jockeys complained about the unsafe condition of the track.

We are seeing our tb incuring injuries on the synthetic that we dont see on dirt.

[docjocoy]

4. oaklawn did not have 4 breakdowns the entire meet last year. nor did saratoga. hollywood park had 4 breakdowns on freaking thanksgiving, hollywood prevue day, with one of them being in the hollywood prevue.

I looked at the hollypark charts, also looked at the videos, and I think, bdw, that those 4 fatalities were nationwide yesterday, not all at hollywood.
I also saw that thread on another forum, reacted the same way you did, until I researched it a little bit.

[Hotwalker]

Jay Hovdey on drf.com wrote a good follow up piece on the fatalities at Hollywood, quoting Mike Smith. Sherriffs doesn't blame the track regarding Cloud Man's injury. Part of the sport but very sad.

[louis finochio]

The jockey's blamed the track after recent rains, that's why they canceled the last 4 races.

[Sylvie Hebert]

I still remember when the All American Futurity was run on a bush track with tractors making a furrow just in front of the starting gate so right out of the gate horses had to jump over it and it was so uneven all over,and after bad rain OH Sh**,...And as a young rider galloping and breezing horses on back dirt roads...How come we had so few breakdowns and now if the track is not manucured and perfectly combed we blame the surface for everything,breakdowns,slow rides,...

[wangkw]

I still remember when the All American Futurity was run on a bush track with tractors making a furrow just in front of the starting gate so right out of the gate horses had to jump over it and it was so uneven all over,and after bad rain OH Sh**,...And as a young rider galloping and breezing horses on back dirt roads...How come we had so few breakdowns and now if the track is not manucured and perfectly combed we blame the surface for everything,breakdowns,slow rides,...

You sure the runway in such conditions could still get a go from the control tower ?

But I did recall such incident once..at the Tawan intl airport...when one of our SIA airplanes zoomed into a runway
still under repair and reconstruction.

Human errors of such scale are unthinkable and unforgivable.

[Shammy Davis]

SH wrote:

I still remember when the All American Futurity was run on a bush track with tractors making a furrow just in front of the starting gate so right out of the gate horses had to jump over it and it was so uneven all over,and after bad rain OH Sh**,...And as a young rider galloping and breezing horses on back dirt roads...How come we had so few breakdowns and now if the track is not manucured and perfectly combed we blame the surface for everything,breakdowns,slow rides,...

The concepts that are applied to track installation and maintenance today have changed dramatically in the past 20 or so years. It has also become a very expensive chore and the track owners don't want to put money into quality designs. It's cheaper to run a tractor than it is too invest in long range safety.

You may not be aware of this, but the Churchill Downs track has the same support "road base" and drainage engineering that is installed at Augusta National Golf Course, home of the Masters Golf Tournament. When was the last time you heard of major problems with the CD track? I can't ever recall their surface being an major issue.

IMO opinion, having been involved in the maintenance and installation of both outdoor and indoor arenas and having read a great deal on the subject, the CA tracks are making the transition from all weather/synthetic surface back to dirt on the "cheap." Simply nothing was changed in regards to the base and drainage and the dirt and sand was poured over the existing failed system. Thoughtlessly, in attempt to make the tracks safer, the maintenance crews have attempted to modify the track surfaces by adding more sand. Sand actually makes the going more difficult for the horse placing greater stress on the limbs. When you add the fact the southern CA tracks have unresolved drainage problems, these tracks are ripe for high incidences of injury.

SH, simply, surfaces today are no longer dirt surfaces you remember and are poorly engineered. CA tracks might consider hiring a golf course maintenance superintendent rather than plowing over poorly designed tracks.

Colonial Downs is one of the better tracks on the east coast, particularly its turf courses. The shame is that it only runs 40 days a year. I should check to see what the maintenance supervisor's creditials are. I wouldn't be surprised to find that he or she has a good amount of design and installation experience.

[bayrabicano]

CA tracks might consider hiring a golf course maintenance superintendent rather than plowing over poorly designed tracks.

I was at Fair Grounds for the Claimer Challenge on Saturday and they said they contacted LSU to help with the turf and couldn't be happier with the results and wish they thought of it years ago.

I know that you're talking dirt, but why couldn't the tracks contact UA about their racetrack industry program and even if they don't offer this type of class they would have the ability to offer top notch research on the subject.

http://ag.arizona.edu/rtip/

[bdw0617]

i have a related question

i'm working on a personal project, and it would be of big help, if i could get all of the days breakdowns in one particular place so i can feed it into a database. does this place exist, or do you have to look though every races daily charts to get this information

[Shammy Davis]

bayrabicano wrote:

. . . I know that you're talking dirt, but why couldn't the tracks contact UA about their racetrack industry program and even if they don't offer this type of class they would have the ability to offer top notch research on the subject.

Actually, concentrated courses involving this issue are available at many universities, but probably only found in the landscape architecture departments or environmental science programs or geology departments. My wife is a Certified Virginia Nurseryman (should be nursery woman to be PC) and owned a landscaping company and much of the information I have read comes from periodicals and other resources that she has available. I've been personally involved in the installation of a couple of outdoor and indoor arena surfaces. Both of those involved all weather surfaces. Road base and drainage design and engineering is the same whether you are building a highway, a golf course, an athletic field, a horseracing track, a recreational park, et al. The same principles apply.

JMO, but I would think that university racing industry programs have their hands full just educating students about the industry without trying to make landscape architects out of them too.

There are plenty of qualified landscape maintenance professionals that can develope long lasting and safe horseracing tracks without knowing which end of a horse produces the fertilizer. There are plenty of golf courses that hire maintenance superintendents, but horseracing tracks are few and job availability not high.

[wangkw]

Will u cut apples with a butcher knife ? Compared to the often very undulating golf courses...the race tracks drainage is just a small
witch...average golf course measures 5500 meters end to end...underground network is far more treacherous and sophiscated...ie
directions of flow..ever enter into a micky mouse puzzle.

[Shammy Davis]

wangkw wrote:

..ever enter into a micky mouse puzzle.

No, but I remember wearing my first mickey mouse club hat. Had a crush on Darlene too! Thought Tommy was a jerk. You probably don't remember the first group of mouseketeers.