From the Los Angeles Times
The actual numbers documenting the success of synthetic tracks are elusive, and controversial.
Rick Arthur, equine medical director for the CHRB, sends along numbers that show marked declines in racing and training deaths at all California tracks since they have gone synthetic. Arthur's numbers say that, during the 2004 and '05 seasons (before synthetics), the fatality rate was "1 in 445 starts on all surfaces combined at the majors (Bay Meadows, Golden Gate Fields, Hollywood Park, Santa Anita, Oak Tree Racing Assn. at Santa Anita and Del Mar). In '07, the rate was 1 in 913 starts on synthetic surfaces."
But Len Shulman, a writer for the Blood-Horse magazine and a frequent guest on Roger Stein's racing radio show, used different numbers on a recent broadcast, numbers he said came from the CHRB's own website and, if accurate, would make synthetic tracks the biggest folly since the Edsel.
He said Hollywood Park lost 19 horses in '03, then 25 in '04, another 20 each in '05 and '06 and, in '07 after a synthetic track had been put in, lost 20. He said Del Mar, during its terrible summer of '06 on dirt, lost 19 horses and, on its new Polytrack in '07, lost 18.
Those numbers, no longer on the CHRB website, were disputed by Shapiro. He said that Shulman was mixing apples and oranges and maybe a few bananas and went on the air to tell him so. Shulman fired back, falling only slightly short of calling Shapiro a liar.
Stein, in racing for 30 years as a trainer and broadcaster, says, "This is exactly what racing didn't need. Horse racing is its own worst enemy. Always has been."
How about dirt.
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