A report examining a cluster of fatal musculoskeletal injuries at Saratoga Race Course last year did not find any overt connections between the deaths but noted that an unusual number of the deaths were due to fetlock injuries and that many of the horses had higher rates of exercise than small numbers of control horses. The report, produced by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, examined the necropsy reports and the racing and training histories of 12 horses that died during Saratoga’s prestigious summer meet last year as a result of musculoskeletal injuries sustained during racing or training. The report also included an analysis of weather conditions during the meet and an examination of data pertaining to the track’s racing surfaces. Eight of the fatalities occurred during or after racing on the dirt or turf course, with four occurring during or after workouts. Two of the racing fatalities occurred after the horses sustained fatal injuries in deep stretch of nationally televised Grade 1 stakes races. Two racing deaths occurred Aug. 26 during the undercard of the Travers Stakes, Saratoga’s most prestigious race. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. The deaths cast a pall over the 2023 summer meet and led officials of the New York Racing Association to consider a pause in live racing after the Travers card was completed. At that time, NYRA put in place several new protocols affecting veterinary examinations. Pat McKenna, NYRA’s vice president of communications, said in a statement that the HISA report “enhances our understanding of the myriad factors that may contribute to injuries.” The statement noted that NYRA has begun using an artificial-intelligence tool to aid in veterinary examinations and has worked with technology companies examining heart rate and stride data to identify at-risk horses. “Continuously improving equine safety is a fundamental responsibility shared among racetrack operators, regulators, trainers, breeders, and owners,” McKenna said. The HISA report noted that 10 of the 11 horses that sustained fatal fractures had an injury to the fetlock joint (the 12th horse had a fatal injury to the suspensory apparatus connected to the fetlock). According to the report, fetlock injuries occur in approximately 50 percent of horses that sustain fatal injuries, but the report did not draw any conclusions about the abnormal rate of fetlock injuries during the Saratoga meet. According to the report, three of the 11 horses with fractures were injected with corticosteroids in the joint that was injured within 30 days of suffering the injury. Corticosteroids are powerful anti-inflammatories that are currently prohibited to be administered within 14 days of a race. HISA has submitted a rule to its federal overseer, the Federal Trade Commission, to expand the prohibition to 30 days. “This finding lends further support to HISA’s proposed rule change,” the report said. An analysis by Dr. Sue Stover, the chair of HISA’s Racetrack Safety Committee and a noted equine orthopedic researcher, concluded that the horses that suffered fatal injuries were 2.5 times more likely to be injured than a group of control horses, based on their exercise and racing history. According to the analysis, the injured horses had more races per year and “on average, more furlongs in races per month when actively racing” than the control horses, which were matched to the injured horses by “age, sex, and quality.” “The factors observed are consistent with our knowledge of repetitive, overuse [fatigue] injuries in racehorses,” Stover wrote. “Frequent high-intensity exercise [as observed in injured horses] that does not allow for recovery of exercise-induced microdamage contributes to the development of stress fractures and subchondral stress remodeling which predispose horses to catastrophic injuries.” Fatalities are rare in racing, occurring in approximately 1.25 horses per 1,000 starts in 2022, the most recent year for which U.S. data is available. The report noted “significantly increased rainfall” during the 2023 Saratoga meet, but an examination of the racing surfaces by HISA’s safety personnel “found no clear association of weather to the series of catastrophic breakdowns, nor did they find any correlation between the track condition ratings and the on-course incidents.” :: Subscribe to the DRF Post Time Email Newsletter: Get the news you need to play today's races!  Still, the report concluded that the “available data suggests that the rainfall could have played a role” in increasing risks of injuries and said that HISA was working with the Racing Surface Testing Laboratory “to collect and analyze additional track surface data to better understand the effects of weather on racetrack maintenance.” NYRA, in its statement, said that it was collaborating on that project. Unusually, five of the musculoskeletal fatalities occurred on the turf course, according to the report. In the years 2018 to 2022, there were a total of four fatalities on the turf course, including two years, 2019 and 2022, in which there were none. In addition, none of the training deaths occurred on the Oklahoma training track. Finally, the report said that HISA continues to work on developing new data-analysis tools that are designed to identify horses at higher risk for injuries. “We are hopeful this powerful tool will contribute to a reduction in equine injuries once it is implemented,” the report said. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.