page_title: Racehorse injuries
section_title: Weather
hierarchical_section_title: Racehorse injuries / Risk factors / Track-related / Weather
caption_attribution_description: English: Jacob Stutzman Public Domain This is my own work produced on June 30, 2011 from data provided by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association on Career Ending Injuries [1]
context_page_description: Racehorse injuries and fatalities are a side effect of training and competition. The problem with equine injuries is that they so often result in death. A 2005 study by the United States Department of Agriculture found that injuries are the second leading cause of death in horses, second only to old age. Nureyev's recovery from a broken leg while retired at stud in 1987 typifies the struggle horses have after being injured.
  Two years after Secretariat's recordbreaking US Triple Crown took the sport in the United States to a new level of popularity, the breakdown and death of Ruffian brought on a new era of safety concerns. Racehorses had been breaking down for centuries, but never before in an event so widely seen as the great match race between Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure at Belmont Park with 18 million viewers. The horse racing industry has been trying to adapt to the increased safety concerns ever since. "I personally think that in a very real way, we're almost held to a higher standard because of the horses—they don't make the decision to do this. And I think that's fair," said Nick Nicholson, the president and chief executive of Keeneland.
context_section_description: For both dirt and turf surfaces there is a need to understand the relationship between the water content and the surface performance. For these surfaces moisture is the single most important variable in the maintenance of the surface. As synthetic surfaces wear it is also likely that the sensitivity to moisture will increase as the wax coating is lost from the surface.
  The TOBA statistics on racing related career ending injuries show that moisture has the opposite effect on dirt and turf tracks. Moisture causes more injuries on dirt tracks, while it reduces injuries on turf tracks. This table does not include data from tracks rated "Good" because that term applies to both dirt and turf.
  2008-2009 TOBA Stats
  Moisture can cause even bigger problems when combined with freezing temperatures. At Philadelphia Park Racetrack in Bensalem, a rash of breakdowns in the first two months of 2004 was blamed on the winter weather and track problems caused by thawing frost. In that short stretch of time, 12 horses were euthanized following races, and another one was destroyed after sustaining a training injury. The TOBA statistics on racing related career ending injuries show that cold weather racing causes almost twice as many injuries as warm weather racing (February's rate of 3.16 is 1.67 times larger than July's rate of 1.90). This graph is a plot of injury rates for different tracks based on when their racing seasons begin and end during the calendar year. To eliminate as many conflicting variables as possible, only North American tracks in temperate climates that race on dirt/turf and that run graded stakes races were used. The tracks were Aqueduct, Belmont, Churchill Downs, Colonial Downs, Hawthorne, Laurel Park, Monmouth, and Saratoga.
  Without better data, it is difficult to determine the effect moisture and freezing temperatures have on synthetic tracks. Golden Gate Fields has a relatively high career-ending injury rate for a synthetic track and their racing season takes place during winter months, but the coldest temperatures average about 50 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees above freezing) in that part of California during that time of year. In Great Britain the fatal injury rate on turf is less than it is on synthetics, which is opposite of North American racing. Freezing temperatures could be the reason because winter racing on the flat only takes place on synthetic tracks in Great Britain. That could result in an increase of the fatality rate on synthetics, but not turf. This anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that synthetic tracks are negatively affected by moisture and freezing temperatures just like dirt and turf.
caption: Career Ending Injury Rates from 2008-2009 for major temperate climate racetracks.
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