Michael Beychok, the 2012 Eclipse Award Handicapper of the Year, was in Northern California earlier this week participating in a conference of crisis management experts on the topic of natural disasters. His mind, not surprisingly, kept wandering to horse racing, and the current crisis faced by the industry over the rash of equine fatalities this winter at Santa Anita.“There are so many parallels,” Beychok said. “And the industry, as a whole, is handling this about as poorly as it can.”When he is not betting the horses, racing a small stable, or advocating for Thoroughbred aftercare, Beychok plays high-stakes politics through his firm, Ourso Beychok, Inc., of Baton Rouge, La. Its specialty is direct-mail campaigns for Democratic candidates, which is a focus right now in Louisiana’s gubernatorial contest.Racing, though, is Beychok’s first love. His heart is breaking for what has happened at Santa Anita this winter, just as his head is aching over the sport’s fumbling reaction to the public and political outcry.“I spoke with people at the NTRA the day after Santa Anita first went on hiatus,” Beychok said. “James Carville actually called me before that and was willing to help tackle the situation. But they weren’t really interested.”That would be James Carville, the guy who ran two successful presidential campaigns.“The reaction was, ‘Let Santa Anita handle it,’ and I don’t know why,” Beychok said. “This is an industry-wide crisis, a real tipping point, and if you don’t get out in front of it early, you’re in trouble.”Racing, though, has faced several such crises in the past and somehow made it through to the other side. “You can’t compare it even to the breakdowns at NYRA in 2012,” Beychok said, referring to a spate of fatalities that prompted national attention and local reforms. “Basically, the environment in which news is able to travel and disseminate is so much faster now to so many more people in a short period of time. And let’s face it, bad news is a lot sexier than good news.”True enough. But today’s information cycle is so brief, and outrage so fleeting, isn’t it possible that the fallout from the Santa Anita situation soon will be old news when the next hot topic comes along?“No,” Beychok replied. “Because a horse is going to die on the track in the next two weeks. That’s just the nature of our business. Every time there is a death on the track there will be another story, and the old news will be ramped up to make it seem almost new again.”(Readers may pause here for a depressing sigh of resignation.)Investigations are ongoing into the circumstances surrounding the Santa Anita fatalities – all but a couple of the necropsies have been completed – but the one apparent common factor among the fatalities was training and racing over sealed surfaces during several windows of time during the heavy storms of January and February.Santa Anita management’s reaction was to suspend racing and training, rehire its former track superintendent, and import a track surface consultant. The storms abated and the track was pronounced “perfect,” which effectively soft-pedaled the idea that the earlier use of the surface was the root of the cause. Then a 22nd horse suffered a fatal injury, prompting another suspension of racing.Since then, The Stronach Group, owner of Santa Anita, has pointed in other directions. A memo from CEO Belinda Stronach outlined a number of reform categories with only an indirect reference to any culpability track condition may have had in the fatalities. This, to a communications pro like Beychok, is closing the barn door after the horses have high-tailed.“My general philosophy is, get the facts out first, and fast,” he said. “And don’t hide anything. That’s very difficult, especially for an insular organization like The Stronach Group. They’re not used to being open to a lot of the faults of the industry.“But if you are able to frame the facts first, then you can deal with whoever else comes along behind you and say, ‘You’re wrong. These are the facts,’ even when a group like PETA comes along and throws a lot of hand grenades that get covered by the media.”One of them apparently landed in the lap of Dianne Feinstein, California’s senior senator, who issued a statement calling for the suspension of racing at Santa Anita until there is a consensus regarding the cause of the spike in fatalities this winter. “Most politicians are by nature reactionary, and they’re only going to overreact to something like this,” Beychok said. “Even someone like Senator Feinstein. If the thing she’s hearing from or reading about comes from PETA, and she hasn’t had a lot of visits from racing-industry folks, that’s a problem. But if she has a more complete picture of the industry, then she would not be taken by surprise when a horse dies at the track. “I certainly don’t blame her for making the statement,” Beychok added. “I think it was entirely legitimate to say, ‘Let’s take a step back and examine this,’ which is probably what The Stronach Group should have done a long time ago.“The thing is, putting horse racing on a ballot in a state like California is not a heavy lift,” Beychok added. “For that reason alone, I’m seriously worried about our future.”