Kentucky Derby: HISA provides pre-race inspection team with new data-analytics tool

The veterinary team at Churchill Downs that is responsible for pre-race inspections has been provided with a new data-analytics tool that will generate risk-factor scores for horses that are entered in races at the track, according to officials of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority.

The tool, which is currently in its beta-testing phase, will generate a numerical rating for horses based on the assessment of 44 “potential risk factors” that contribute to a higher risk for injury, according to Lisa Lazarus, the chief executive officer of HISA. Veterinarians will be able to consult the score in order to determine if a horse should face greater scrutiny during the multiple pre-race inspections that are required before a horse is allowed to run, Lazarus said.

“It’s not a tool designed to say that this horse needs to be scratched,” Lazarus said. “It’s designed to help the veterinarian do the best job that they can.”

Lazarus announced the deployment of the tool, which was developed with the data-analytics companies Palantir and AWS, during a livestream press conference on Tuesday afternoon detailing the steps that HISA and its drug-enforcement arm, the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit, are taking to mitigate the risks of injury at Churchill Downs this year. Churchill opens on April 27, and the Kentucky Derby is scheduled for May 4.

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Last year, Churchill canceled the remainder of its spring-summer meet in early June after 12 horses died at the track over the previous several months, including one death that preceded the opening of the spring meet. The racing dates were moved to Ellis Park, a track Churchill owns in western Kentucky.

The deaths led HISA to commission a report analyzing the factors that might have been involved, one of three reports the organization conducted last year in response to concerns about safety issues at specific tracks. The Churchill report found no “smoking gun,” or obvious commonalities, linking the deaths.

“It’s not that we didn’t uncover the cause,” Lazarus said. “It’s that there wasn’t one singular factor that caused each of the injuries and each of the fatalities. But we did learn a lot from the investigation and all the data we’ve been collecting.”

The project to develop a data-analytics tool assessing risk factors grew out of the discussions surrounding the Churchill investigation. Prior to the advent of HISA, the racing industry used the Equine Injury Database, which began collecting data in 2009, to generate information about potential risk factors among the overall horse population, but individual risk factors for horses have not previously been widely utilized during pre-race inspections.

The new tool was built using the risk factors identified by the Equine Injury Database and the epidemiologists who have analyzed the data, according to a spokesperson for HISA. Over the next months and years, HISA officials are hopeful that the algorithm will identify new factors and refine the existing ones. The tool will also eventually be integrated with HISA’s veterinary treatment database, which so far has collected approximately two million records.

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“With machine-learning, the model gets better and better,” Lazarus said. As for why the tool is still in beta-testing, Lazarus said that “we’re still improving it and making sure it’s at an optimal level.”

HISA officials also expressed confidence on the conference call that Churchill’s racing surfaces will not present any problems this year, at least from initial assessments. Ann McGovern, HISA’s director of racetrack safety, said that HISA inspection teams have already conducted an analysis of the track’s surfaces, and those inspections have turned up metrics that are “much improved over last year,” McGovern said.

“When I say much improved, their surface was in very good shape last year, and now it’s in even better shape,” McGovern said.

Churchill added material to its dirt racing surface this year, McGovern said, and the company has also invested in new maintenance equipment.

Lazarus said that she has heard from trainers that “the surface is the best it’s ever been.”

“The feedback has all been positive to date,” Lazarus said.

Last year at the Churchill meet, seven of the deaths, including two sudden deaths and a fatality from a paddock accident, occurred in the lead-up to the Derby, leading regulators and trainers to exercise extreme caution with horses racing on the Derby card. Five horses were scratched from the Derby, including Forte, the morning-line favorite, on the day of the race. Still, two horses died of musculoskeletal injuries on the Derby undercard, creating a crisis at the track.

Several of the scratches created ill will between regulatory veterinarians and trainers, and Lazarus said that HISA has been working closely with regulatory teams to search for improvements on how inspections are conducted and how they are communicated to horsemen. Lazarus acknowledged, however, that under state law, the authority to scratch a horse rests with personnel from the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. Churchill’s own on-site veterinary team also has the power to order horses scratched.

“There’s a lot of conversation right now about scratches, about the criteria, about communication, how we can have the most level playing field,” Lazarus said. “But there’s always going to be challenges when it’s a human making a judgment call.”

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Ben Mosier, executive director of the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit, said that the organization has collected approximately 150 out-of-competition samples this year from horses that participated in the prep races leading to the Derby. Mosier also said that the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit expects to collect more out-of-competition samples in the next week, and that the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit will have its own investigative personnel on-site at Churchill in the lead-up to the Derby.

The Anti-Doping and Medication Control program enforced by the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit did not go into effect last year until May 22, after the Derby and the second leg of the Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes, were already run. So this year’s Derby will be the first under HIWU’s jurisdiction.

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