On the eve of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club’s 2019 summer race meet in mid-July, trainer Peter Miller walked the backstretch with the hang-dog look shared by many of his fellow horsemen.

Seemingly everyone in the sport was feeling shell-shocked on the heels of a Santa Anita winter/spring meet that stoked a firestorm of concern and controversy because of 30 horse deaths.

There was one primary question being asked of the reeling industry: How will you make racing safer?

Miller, an Encinitas resident who doesn’t shy from speaking his mind, said, “I can fix this problem in 10 seconds.

“Less racing. There’s too much racing. Cut the race dates and put in synthetic race tracks.

“It’s easy to blame the trainers and vets and medication, and it’s just really a distraction from the real issues. The real issues are too much racing and unsafe surfaces. The problem is that that costs money.”

Four months later, Miller’s assertions are more relevant than ever.

Del Mar had an extraordinarily safe summer meet with no deaths in racing and four in training. But in Santa Anita’s six-week fall meet, seven horses died in training and racing, and the season ended tragically with the nationally televised breakdown of Mongolian Groom in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Racing remains staggered and on its heels, but more change is coming.

Miller’s fewer racing dates idea has come to fruition, with the California Horse Racing Board approving a plan this week for Santa Anita to take a mandatory 12 days off for weather or other issues in its 102-card winter/spring meet.

Far more controversially, the possible return to synthetic race tracks in Southern California is back on the table — just more than a decade after the first synthetics revolution, which was lauded in the beginning but dismissed by many in the end as a bungled science experiment.

Still, many experts and veterinarians, including Dr. Rick Arthur, equine medical director of the CHRB, and Dr. Dana Stead, Del Mar’s lead vet, maintain that synthetic is the safer surface.

“I’m all for going back (to synthetics),” Stead said.

Speaking recently at Del Mar’s fall meet, Miller’s stance hadn’t changed.

“I think if we’re going to survive in this political atmosphere, (synthetics) might be the way forward. I prefer dirt (racing). But I also prefer working to being unemployed.”

The pressure to go to synthetic is mounting.

“Everything is under consideration, with the goal being the safest possible track,” said Greg Avioli, president and CEO of the Thoroughbred Owners of California.

In a recent interview with Thoroughbred Daily News, outgoing CHRB vice chair Madeleine Auerbach said that after the Mongolian Groom death, Santa Anita should shut down and announce it was immediately switching to synthetic.

“I know there’s problems with getting material and everything,” Auerbach said, “All of that aside, at some point somebody has to do something bold and brave, get us off the front page — not keep doing business as usual.”

On Thursday at a CHRB meeting in Del Mar, Aidan Butler, Santa Anita’s acting executive director for California racing for the Stronach Group, said the facility is considering all options, including a replacement of its dirt surface with synthetic.

He said over the next several months he will seek consultation from industry experts from all over the country. Butler noted that Santa Anita has the property space to test various surfaces before any wholesale changes to the racing surface.

“This is a big conversation,” Butler said in a hotel hallway after he appeared before the CHRB board on Thursday and asserted, “When we do something, it’s not going to be knee-jerk. It’s going to be rooted in data and real thought.”

The synthetic discussion puts the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club in an awkward position. DMTC officials want input into any decisions, but their experience in the last couple of years has been far different from Santa Anita’s.

After a difficult summer in 2016 in which 23 horses died overall (10 while racing on the dirt), Del Mar completely overhauled its dirt track, which was installed in 2015 as a replacement for synthetic. It has since been among the safest facilities in America, even when compared to those that have synthetic tracks.

There were six racing deaths at Del Mar in 2017 (four racing on the dirt), three in ’18 (two on the dirt) and after this past summer’s zero deaths, there have been two officially in the fall (one on the dirt). (A third horse died from complications following surgery after a race breakdown on the dirt, but for CHRB statistical purposes it is not considered a racing death.)

The Jockey Club Equine Injury Database has been tracking racing deaths since 2009 and uses the formula of deaths per 1,000 starts. Del Mar had a rate of 0.91 on its dirt track last year (0.79 when turf racing is included). By comparison, the Stronach-run Golden Gate Fields — the remaining California track with a synthetic surface — had a death rate of 1.40 on synthetic (1.12 when including turf).

In ’17, Del Mar’s dirt rate was 1.76; Golden Gate’s synthetic was 1.79.

Based on Del Mar’s recent history, track President Josh Rubinstein examines numbers such as those and questions whether it makes sense for Del Mar to go to synthetic.

“When you have not just opinion, but science and data, and you’ve got to take out (dirt) and put in synthetic? It doesn’t make a lot of sense, right?” Rubinstein said.

DMTC is in an industry position of having to hear all ideas and proposals that enhance safety, but also has to weigh the costs and benefits for Del Mar.

Installation of a synthetic track would come with a price tag of more than $10 million, industry officials said, and there is a debate about whether Del Mar could go it alone with dirt if Santa Anita chooses synthetic, because horses are trained to race on specific surfaces.

“For us, it would not just be a Del Mar Thoroughbred Club decision, but that of our landlord, the 22nd Agriculture District,” Rubinstein said. “They’re going to have a say. At the end of the day, all of the money goes back to them. It’s a major investment and they would need to be a part of that discussion.”

Rubinstein maintained that many horsemen are pleased with the current Del Mar dirt. He told the story of walking onto the track recently with Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, who stomped on the dirt and proclaimed the track to be well-cushioned and extremely safe.

After a recent stakes win at Del Mar, Baffert said, “They’ve got everything right here. Santa Anita still needs some work. The dirt is not the same there.”

Baffert said that if Santa Anita wants to consider synthetics, it should first put it on the training track, while in a recent interview with Bloodhorse, Baffert called synthetics “a Band-Aid.”

“We need more experts,” he said. “I know they brought in a lot of vets (for the Breeders’ Cup). We don’t need (more vets), we need track experts.”

The opinions of Baffert and other horsemen and handicappers about synthetics are certainly tinged by the first go around with the surface in the mid-2000s. Some are fearful of what another attempt might look like.

“To me, this is like going back to the future,” longtime Southern California handicapper Bob Ike said with exasperation. “We’ve already done this once at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, and it wasn’t the panacea that everybody thought it was going to be.”

After horse deaths spiked in 2006 (Del Mar had 18) and brought negative attention to the sport, the CHRB mandated that all large tracks install synthetic surfaces by the 2007 racing season. That sent the facilities scrambling to find suitable suppliers, and among Del Mar, Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Golden Gate, three different companies were chosen.

Del Mar bought Polytrack, Golden Gate chose Tapeta, and Hollywood Park and Santa Anita picked Cushion Track.

“Everybody wanted to do it their own way,” Arthur said. “It wasn’t done in a disciplined, analytical way. They jumped into it.”

After initial good reviews, the Southern California tracks eventually suffered problems. Santa Anita experienced drainage issues so bad that it had to cancel races and eventually sued Cushion Track, alleging it got an inferior version of Hollywood Park’s surface.

Santa Anita replaced Cushion Track with Pro-Ride, which didn’t handle well the wide range in temperatures in Arcadia.

Arthur recalled that the Pro-Ride surface reached 170 degrees on hot days and post parades were rushed so as not to burn the horses’ feet. Temperatures below 35 degrees froze it.

Ike said, “The track smelled like standing next to the La Brea Tar Pits.”

Del Mar’s expenditure of $9 million on Polytrack seemed prudent because another respected course, Keeneland in Kentucky, went with it. But the DMTC soon discovered that materials in the mix (silica sand, carpet fibers, recycled rubber and PVC covered with wax) contracted and expanded with the temperature.

“It was a totally different track in the morning than it was in the afternoon, and that’s a bad thing,” said Del Mar CEO Joe Harper.

Ike complained that the grayish mix of it was ugly, too: “It looked like something that came out of your vacuum cleaner.”

Trainer John Shirreffs called the surface a “resounding failure” and threatened to not run his great filly, Zenyatta, on it. He never followed through, though, and Zenyatta won three straight Clement L. Hirsch Stakes on Polytrack.

“Zenyatta liked it; she didn’t care,” Harper said with a laugh.

When the Polytrack wax began to erode the hard foundation and large chunks rose to the surface, Harper and Co. had seen enough, and Del Mar was the last to get away from synthetics after the 2014 season.

The end of the synthetic era in Southern California was declared, though if measured in horse safety, it had been a success. Arthur conducted a study that found a 37-percent reduction in racing fatalities between 2004 and 2009 after the tracks switched to synthetics.

Del Mar’s death rate was mixed. From 2009-14, it had two seasons at 0.51 or better, but two other years above 2.00.

“The reality is that synthetic tracks are safer,” Arthur said last week. “There are certainly issues with the maintenance of a synthetic track, and we jumped into (the first era) of it too quickly. But we’ve learned a lot since then, and I do think it’s a legitimate alternative.”

Arthur predicted a 30- to 40-percent reduction in fatalities with a return to synthetic.

“I hope they go this way,” Arthur said of Santa Anita.

The lone synthetic survivor was the Bay Area’s Golden Gate Fields and its Tapeta Footings surface.

After having among the worst death rates before synthetic, Golden Gate’s rate over the last 10 years has ranged from a low of 0.98 in 2014 to a high of 1.79 in ’17. That is good, though it should be noted that New York’s Belmont Park dirt surface has been safer than Golden Gate’s synthetic in three of the last six years.

Trainer Andy Mathis, who regularly conditions his horses at Golden Gate while bringing a string down to Del Mar for the summer, said he was opposed to synthetics when they were first introduced, but has become an ardent fan.

“I think it’s gotten better over time,” Mathis said. “I think there are less injuries of all kinds. It’s a lot kinder on the horse, and it doesn’t change. I think that’s the key. At other tracks you have to worry about whether the track is deeper or faster. On synthetic it’s really the same every day.”

Mathis said that as the Southern California tracks have put in deeper dirt to make them safer, it has made it harder running for young horses.

“They’re not made to plow through a deep surface,” he said.

The knock on synthetic surfaces by handicappers is that they create a sameness in the racing because speed isn’t as much of a factor and jockeys have to wait until the final stretch to push their horses.

Ike and Carlsbad’s Jon Lindo, a handicapper and horse owner, said that the “brilliance” of some horses is lost.

“A horse with natural speed, you really can’t use it,” Lindo said. “They become quarter-mile sprints to the wire.”

Steve Miyadi, a trainer who runs horses regularly at Golden Gate, argues that the racing style saves pressure on horses’ legs and makes for closer, more exciting racing.

“I feel like more often than not the best horse wins on synthetic,” Miyadi said. “He might not win by 12 (lengths), but they win. And without a doubt it’s more competitive. It becomes a jockey’s race much of the time.

“I think we can’t underestimate the handicapper,” he added. “They can adjust. You walk through the grandstand and they become very observant about the biases.”

A switch to synthetics by either or both of the Southern California tracks would have an impact well beyond safety. The horsemen agree that there are horses that respond to the synthetic surface and those who don’t.

For top-end trainers with barns full of promising horses, they can test prospects and see where they work best. But for owners such as Lindo, who have limited funds and suffer more dearly for their misses, a wholesale change in surface has serious implications.

Lindo said he would have to ship his current horses out of state and doesn’t know if he can afford to have another string that specializes in synthetic.

“I don’t have a big checkbook,” Lindo said., “A lot of smaller guys have supported California racing for a long, long time. If you keep changing the rules, it’s hard to set up a business plan on how you’re going to be a success.”

Lindo makes other practical points, such as the potential further loss of the horse population, and thus handle from race bets, and local race fans missing out on prep races for the Triple Crown.

Trainer Eoin Harty, a native Irishman who in July became president of the California Thoroughbred Trainers, hears the concerns of his brethren, but has enough experience at synthetic surface tracks to believe they are better for safety.

“I’m a huge fan of the synthetic surface,” said Harty, who races at Golden Gate and keeps strings at Santa Anita and in Florida. “I had no opinion before the tracks came in. But with racing on them and adapting what I do, statistically and anecdotally, my horses are much safer.”

Harty said he trusts the surface so much that his horses train without any shoes on their hooves until their first race.

“I should race them that way, but I just don’t have the (guts) to,” Harty said with a laugh.

The bottom line, Harty said, is that racing must understand that to survive, it needs to adapt.

“Nobody wants to see carnage on the race track,” Harty said. “Everybody has to be on the same page to do whatever it takes to save our sport.”

He related the story of being on a plane recently and being grilled by the woman next to him about what he did for a living. Harty could no more talk around it, and he finally confessed that he was a thoroughbred trainer. He felt badly to be embarrassed by that.

“It’s a beautiful sport. We work with beautiful animals,” Harty said. “It’s a labor of love and most of us aren’t getting rich. But we’re suffering a death by a thousand paper cuts here, and we need to stop it.”

Sign up for U-T Sports daily newsletter

The latest Padres, Chargers and Aztecs headlines along with the other top San Diego sports stories every morning.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Trainer Bob Baffert seeking his fourth straight Debutante

Hernandez all but wraps up riding title with four winner’s on Labor Day card

Note: Jockey Flavien Prast, who won four races on Pacific Classic Day, will return from the East Coast to ride closing weekend at Del Mar, starting Friday.

Brilliant colt runs fastest speed rating in 18 years in victory

FIRST RACE: 5-3-4-1 SECOND RACE: 1-7-6-4 THIRD RACE: 10-4-8-3 FOURTH RACE: 9-13-1-3 FIFTH RACE: 5-1-3-6 SIXTH RACE: 8-4-2-11 SEVENTH RACE: 1-4-10-8 EIGHTH RACE: 11-4-9-2 NINTH RACE: 1-9-10-8 10TH RACE: 4-10-11-8 11TH RACE: 2-3-4-8 (BEST BET) Good luck.

Former riding champ comes from Saratoga to take home big bucks

Privacy Policy Terms of Service Sign Up For Our Newsletters