TDN_WR_170_SANTA_ANITA_SEGMENT

thoroughbreddailynews

Watch TDN_WR_170_SANTA_ANITA_SEGMENT - thoroughbreddailynews on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00For the love of the horse, for generations to come.

00:28Good morning, it is January 18th at 1109 a.m. and welcome to another edition of the TDN

00:33Writer's Room podcast.

00:34I'm your host Bill Finley, I'm a correspondent for the TDN and I co-host a radio show on

00:39Sirius XM every Saturday with Dave Johnson.

00:41Please tune in.

00:42Hey guys, happy January 18th, I'm Randy Moss with NBC Sports with Lucy Standing Guard in

00:48the background.

00:49Zoe Cabman here with First Racing and Santa Anita and XBTV, Doodles right behind me.

00:55It's January the 18th and I am flying through dry January guys, I just wanted to throw that

01:01out there.

01:02Wait a minute, dry January, I don't follow, fill me in.

01:05It's raining a lot out there, what do you mean?

01:08Oh, I see, okay, okay, duh, sorry about that.

01:12Yes, Santa Anita of course had to cancel on Saturday and on Monday over the weekend.

01:18Speaking of Santa Anita, I wanted to kick off the story, you know, look, as writers

01:23we spend a lot of time talking about the bad news in horse racing because frankly there

01:27is a lot of bad news.

01:28It's nice to talk about the good news and going back to 2019 was one of the darkest

01:33periods in racing history.

01:35Lucy just moved by the way, I mean about an eighth of an inch.

01:38It's shocking, I know.

01:40Yeah, shocking.

01:41Okay, 2019, one of the worst chapters in horse racing history when there was all those breakdowns

01:47at Santa Anita.

01:48It was front page news in the LA Times and on the six o'clock news every night.

01:53I mean, a really awful period and some people were really thinking that the sport was going

01:57to perhaps be outlawed in California.

02:00Zoe's employer, the Stronach Group First Racing, they got together and said, we've got to fix

02:04this darn thing.

02:05Fast forward about three and a half years later, boy have they fixed it and they provided

02:09us with some statistics this week.

02:11In 2022, there was not a single breakdown in a dirt race at Santa Anita during the entire

02:19year.

02:21There were 12 fatalities, we want the number to be zero, but they were along the lines

02:25of other things, some sudden deaths, there were horses in training.

02:28In the afternoon, racing on the dirt, no fatalities and that comes on the heels of a Del Mar year

02:34where at both meets, zero fatalities during racing as well.

02:39Randy, certainly welcome good news and you've got to give the Stronach Group tremendous

02:44amount of credit.

02:46It looks like they've gone from one extreme to the other.

02:48Well, they deserve a tremendous amount of credit.

02:50I don't think, given the stature of the animal rights lobby nowadays in the 21st century,

02:58I don't think it's a sensationalistic take to say that the very existence of Santa Anita

03:05might have been in question unless they turned things around and it took a group effort.

03:10It took the racetrack, it took the veterinarians, it took the horsemen to all collaborate and

03:16try to get this thing turned around.

03:19Unfortunately, I don't think you're going to get nearly as much news coverage on the

03:26TV and in the newspapers about what Santa Anita has done positively since then as you've

03:32got in terms of negative coverage back in 2019, but that's just the nature of the news

03:36cycles and the nature of the beast.

03:39But yes, I agree that they deserve a tremendous amount of credit for getting a handle on this.

03:45Zoe, you're right there, your boots on the ground.

03:48What is going right?

03:49I mean, everything is going right.

03:51Kudos to the Stronach Group, First Racing and the horsemen because there are a lot of

03:57old school horsemen out here that didn't take lightly to the veterinary checks that went

04:02on.

04:03But at the end of the day, you have to acquiesce for horse racing to move forward in California.

04:08There's a vegan restaurant on every corner.

04:11This is a different country we're living in, in Southern California.

04:15California on a whole is completely different.

04:18I always feel like we're on an island out here.

04:21And as far as horse racing, we are.

04:24And the fact that we had to acquiesce just a little bit to Peter, a lot of people were

04:28saying, well, why are you bending over to placate those guys?

04:33Well, this is the world that we live in, and we were in very, very much danger of shutting

04:40down.

04:41So I think there were, let me see, I wrote it down, 5,381 veterinary exams performed

04:48on 4,673 horses last year in California.

04:55And it just goes to show the scrutiny these horses are under, and some of them pass and

04:59some of them don't.

05:01It's down to the horsemen and the vets on a whole.

05:04And of course, we have the best track maintenance here in Southern California as well, to just

05:09get this thing going and it's going in the right direction.

05:12It's not perfect.

05:14I'm not sure it could ever be perfect when you're dealing with four-legged animals, but

05:19it's certainly on the right track.

05:21Yeah.

05:22And one of the things I learned from writing this story was how successful these veterinary

05:27checks have been.

05:29And basically, to put it into layman's language, they basically put all these horses under

05:35a microscope, and they're not going to let anything slip through the cracks.

05:39But it makes me wonder about racing as a whole.

05:42And I don't have the numbers in front of me, but when the Jockey Club puts out its numbers

05:46at the end of the year, end of the fiscal year, the amount of breakdowns is going down,

05:51but it's not going down as dramatically as it has, or anywhere near as dramatically as

05:55it has at Santa Anita, which leads me to say, why isn't everybody doing what they're

06:02doing at Santa Anita?

06:03I know it may not be that practical for other tracks.

06:06I'm sure it's very costly, it's very time consuming, and maybe a lesser track just doesn't

06:12have the manpower to do something like this.

06:15But my goodness, if this is working as well as it is at Santa Anita to have these veterinary

06:19checks, it should be done everywhere.

06:22We shouldn't just be talking about Santa Anita having no breakdowns.

06:25We should be talking about horse racing having as close to no breakdowns as we can possibly

06:29get.

06:30Yeah, well, unfortunately, it's not just the case in horse racing, it's the case with every

06:34other sport in life in general.

06:36A lot of times these draconian measures aren't taken, unless something's put under a microscope

06:42and a racetrack is getting, you know, tremendous negative publicity.

06:45Arlington Park had a similar situation way back when, and it led to them switching from

06:49a dirt surface to a synthetic surface.

06:52It's been a whole sea change out in Southern California.

06:55When you think back to what happened in 2019, it wasn't just the lack of veterinary oversight,

07:01it wasn't just trainers perhaps pushing the envelope a little too much.

07:06If you remember, there was a pretty strong weather component to that in 2019, a very

07:11rainy season.

07:13The track had to be compacted to get the water off of it over and over and over.

07:18And now look what happened this past weekend, very rainy weekend and Santa Anita just said,

07:23we're going to cancel Saturday's racing car.

07:26You would never have seen that, I don't think, back in 2019.

07:29So a lot of things have changed.

07:31And there's a statute that's been put forward that if the track is sealed, they have to

07:36have a meeting with the Jockeys Guild.

07:38There are like four or five different entities that have to meet together and decide whether

07:43racing is safe to go ahead.

07:45And I think they're just basically going on the side of caution, which is a very good

07:50thing.

07:51And to echo your point about Arlington, is it me?

07:53I was at Arlington during that terrible rash breakdowns I was here.

07:58I've seen firsthand, Peter camped out at Arlington Park, Peter camped out at Santa Anita, Greyhound

08:06racing is gone in Florida.

08:09So I mean, these are real things that go on unless you've seen it firsthand.

08:13I mean, there were some days it was hard to even drive in the gates at Santa Anita

08:16because they were picketing outside.

08:19This is real, absolutely real, the things that are going on.

08:23And, you know, yes, it's not sounded out in the news right now.

08:27But as far as I'm concerned, no news is good news.

08:30Right.

08:31And, you know, everybody in horse racing loves to hate Peter.

08:33And that's fine.

08:34They give you a lot of reasons to dislike them.

08:38And people, I'm sure, were very unhappy with the news coverage.

08:41Zoe, you were there.

08:43You know, from a distance, I wouldn't get the same feel that you did.

08:47But Aiden Butler, the CEO of First Racing, told me about, you know, the helicopter, you

08:51know, the buzz of the helicopters overhead.

08:54But had that not happened, I don't think we'd be where we are today.

08:58And look, you don't like it.

09:00You don't want to ever come.

09:02And you know, Peter is public enemy number one for a lot of people in horse racing.

09:06But you know, if this might have happened in 1963, it wouldn't have been a big deal.

09:11Nobody would have paid any attention to it and nothing would have been fixed.

09:15I'm not saying Santa Anita wouldn't have done the right thing anyways.

09:18But the fact that their backs were pushed against the wall by PETA and by the news media

09:24obviously made it, you know, forced the issue quite some bit.

09:28So from an ugly situation and what a lot of people, I'm sure, consider very unfair treatment,

09:35some good definitely came from that.

09:37I think a big round of applause needs to go out to Delmar as well, who has followed suit

09:43with all the protocols in place at Santa Anita.

09:46Obviously Santa Anita runs for seven months of the year, just about, and Delmar runs for

09:51almost three.

09:52So there's a little bit of difference there, but the whole of California has really banded

09:58together.

09:59Very good.

Category

Transcript

Recommended