The overall fatality rate in U.S. Thoroughbred flat races in 2020 declined by 7.8 percent compared to 2019, with the rate falling to its lowest level since the centralized collection of data on fatalities began in 2009, according to statistics released on Monday by The Jockey Club. Overall, U.S. Thoroughbreds suffered fatal injuries at a rate of 1.41 per 1,000 starts in 2020, according to the statistics, down from 1.53 in 2019. The fatality rate for races on dirt fell from 1.60 in 2019 to 1.49 in 2020, compared to the average through 2019 of 1.94, and the rate for races on turf fell from 1.56 to 1.27, compared to the average of 1.48. The fatality rate on synthetic surfaces increased from 0.93 to 1.02, compared to the average of 1.19. In 2009, the overall fatality rate was 2.00. With the latest decline, the fatality rate has dropped since 2009 by 29.5 percent. Overall, the fatality rate over the 12 years that data has been collected has fallen to 1.76. Dr. Tim Parkin, a veterinary epidemiologist who is a consultant on the Equine Injury Database, said that the decline in fatality rate from 2009 to 2020 represented the “equivalent” of 140 fewer racehorse deaths “had there been no change in risk since 2009.” (The equivalence calculation is complicated by the variation in number of starts each year.) The total number of fatalities in 2020 was 333, according to the statistics, from 236,561 starts. Overall, that means that 99.86 percent of all starts did not end in a fatality. The number of fatal injuries was by far the lowest number on record, but that number was partially the result of the number of starts falling significantly in 2020 due to widespread race cancellations because of the coronavirus pandemic. (The fatality rate controls for the number of races by representing the deaths as a percentage of starts.) The fatality rate for races shorter than six furlongs remained the highest by distance raced, at 1.66, compared to 1.63 last year and an overall average through 2019 of 2.03. The rate for races between six furlongs and a mile was 1.35, compared to 1.50 in 2019 and an overall average of 1.72 since 2019, while the rate for races longer than a mile was 1.22, compared to 1.47 last year and an overall average of 1.63. “We will dig deeper into the numbers in the coming months to better understand trends in the 2020 data,” Dr. Parkin said. Although most rates declined from 2019 to 2020, the fatality rate for 2-year-old runners in 2020 was 1.67 per 1,000 starts, the highest the annual rate has been since data began to be collected and a sharp increase over the 1.18 rate posted for 2019 and the overall average of 1.35. However, as with all the rates, the underlying numbers for fatalities are relatively small, with an increase of just five fatalities in 2020 compared to 2019, from 29 to 34. “Additional studies of the EID are in progress to better understand the risk factors potentially associated with the 2020 2-year-old racing fatalities,” said Kristin Werner, the senior counsel and administrator of the EID. Despite ample studies showing that horses that start at 2 suffer fewer fatalities than horses that do not, the deaths of 2-year-olds are seized on by anti-racing groups that contend the practice is cruel. The Jockey Club said that data on 99.7 percent of the races run in the U.S. was collected for the 2020 figures. The Jockey Club also noted that the 21 racetracks that are accredited by the National Thoroughbred Safety Association under its safety and best-practices program had an overall rate of 1.32 fatalities, compared to 1.48 for the 62 non-accredited tracks. The data includes horses that died within 72 hours of a race, and it does not include horses running in steeplechase races. Since the EID was launched, racing officials have used the data to create “warning flags” on horses that are deemed to be of much higher risk for a fatality when they are entered into a race. The racing industry has also put in place a number of measures designed to improve the assessment of risk while tightening controls on medications that can make those assessments problematic, such as the use of painkillers and anti-inflammatories.