Beyer on Breakdowns

Andrew Beyer makes one of his too rare Washington Post appearances today (which tend to get picked up a day later in the Daily Racing Form) to address the large number of recent breakdowns at tracks such as Del Mar and Arlington Park. Beyer deflects the blame from track surfaces, and says trainers fail to acknowledge that they are "part of the problem."

The construction and maintenance of racetracks today is much more sophisticated than it was decades ago -- when breakdowns were rarer. Moreover, a look at the Del Mar casualty list casts doubt on the theory that dirt was the culprit. Three of the 12 horses injured themselves on the turf. Two or three were horses whose records contained red flags suggesting that something was wrong; one of them, Ugotadowhatugotado, had run well in $62,500 claiming company and was entered for the bargain-basement price of $16,000 on the last day of her life. [....]

In many cases it is disingenuous for trainers to blame a racing surface for catastrophic injuries when they themselves are part of the problem. After the breakdowns at Arlington Park became a subject of controversy, trainer Christine Janks wrote a column for the Blood-Horse magazine and declared: "There is no mystery to me why we are having these breakdowns. . . . Trainers are responsible for the health of these horses . . . and not all trainers put the welfare of the horse first."

Washington Post: For Run of Fatal Breakdowns, No Easy Place to Fix Blame