The breakdowns that have taken the lives of 15 horses during the first 42 days of the Arlington Park meeting may be the tip of an American racing iceberg.
Like Arlington President Roy Arnold, state steward Eddie Arroyo and state veterinarian Joseph Lokanc Jr., owners, trainers and jockeys are baffled by the spate of mishaps.
“I’m a big critic of racetracks, but in the last four or five years this is one of the best racetracks I’ve been on in my life, and I’ve been doing this for over 50 years,” trainer Dave Kassen said Sunday in the Arlington paddock.
“I talk to all my riders about it, and I’ve heard no complaints. I don’t blame the racetrack. Maybe it’s a coincidence, or maybe we’ve got a bunch of bad horses who are just worn out.”
Kassen is one of many who wonder if the root causes of the problem are the increased physical vulnerability of the fragile thoroughbreds because of the emphasis on breeding for speed and on winter racing in places like Chicago during the last 30 years.
A byproduct of the significantly increased number of racing days nationally has been a more pronounced emphasis on speed. Horses that run in 6-furlong sprints don’t require the training time or the space between races as those who run 1 1/8 miles or beyond.
“The name of the game is soundness, and they’re breeding soundness out of the game,” Kassen said. “I can tell that by the babies I get. You gallop them a mile and a half or two miles, and in 30 days they start coming up with ankle problems and sore shins. That never used to happen.”
Given that soundness is a problem, why is Arlington the track where breakdowns are reaching epidemic proportions?
“I think it’s a little bit of everything,” said Arlington’s all-time leading jockey, Earlie Fires. “The track seems the same as always. I’ve never had a horse take a bad step at this meeting.
“But a lot of horses [at Arlington] have been running for a lot of years, and a lot have run this year. There are so many ways to get them back running within the next week or two where it used to take maybe two months.
“It’s no different than with people. They used to keep people in the hospital when they had their knees or ankles operated on. Now they get people on their feet in one day, but people aren’t under the stress these horses are.”
Arnold believes fewer racing days on the Chicago circuit would make for sounder horses at Arlington.
“It’s clear that relative to the size of the thoroughbred population in Illinois, we’re racing too much,” he said. “I think that needs to be looked at going into next season, whether that’s racing fewer days or whether it’s adjusting when the meets are held.
“We’re looking at perhaps [fewer] days per week but extending into September to better align the Arlington meet with the Keeneland meet so we can attract horses here after Churchill Downs closes [in mid-July] and make it convenient to bring a division here rather than just ship individual horses.
“If you accept that the track is safe and in peak condition, then you have to look at the horses themselves.”
No breakdowns have come on the grass course. But after the portion of the dirt track’s surface where breakdowns have been occurring was pulled off Wednesday and the base was scrutinized, no problems were found.
That seemingly validated the opinions of Kassen, Fires and Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott, who came from Churchill Downs to saddle two horses Sunday.
“I think the tracks [nationally] have gotten better over the last 30 years,” Mott said. “The machines [that work the tracks] are better. The testing of track surfaces is better.”
One reason the situation at Arlington is so puzzling is the low incidence of breakdowns during the Feb. 25-May 2 meeting at Hawthorne Race Course, which opened the 2006 Chicago thoroughbred season.
“We had only three breakdowns during racing at Hawthorne,” Lokanc said.
But, said Fires: “Hawthorne gets the best of it because they get to start out and a lot of horses are coming off a rest. Then they get them really geared up to run over here for bigger purses.”
It’s expensive to own a racehorse, and economics comes into play when trainers plan their itineraries.
“Horses don’t get the months off they used to get,” Lokanc said. “If we don’t race here [in December, February and March], they’ll go somewhere else.”
Though the racing season has lengthened locally and nationally, horses aren’t running nearly as often as they did before the mid-1970s. When Barbaro won the Kentucky Derby, he was making only the sixth start of his career. Contrast this number with Dust Commander, who was running in his 23rd race when he won the 1970 Derby, and Cannonade, who was running his 22nd when he won the 1974 Derby.
“They just don’t make horses like they used to,” said Wayne Catalano, Arlington’s top trainer for three of the last four years. “I don’t see the track or the racing schedule as a problem. Horses have been coming to Arlington from Hawthorne and before that Sportsman’s Park for years.”
Barbaro, Afleet Alex, Smarty Jones, Charismatic and Grindstone are winners of Triple Crown races in the last 11 years who are classic examples of the fragility of contemporary horses.
Barbaro’s case is the most dramatic. He suffered a life-threatening breakdown shortly after leaving the starting gate in the Preakness but was saved after undergoing surgery the next day.
In Lokanc’s opinion, several horses given lethal injections at Arlington might also be alive if they’d received the same medical attention as Barbaro.
“It comes down to the economics issue,” he said. “And I’m not sure Barbaro is going to be saved long term. [If he does recover], he’s going to have special needs the rest of his life. That takes a certain economic commitment.”
Christine Janks, who is one of Arlington’s top trainers, believes greed begets breakdowns.
“The vast majority of trainers are good horsemen, but there are some bad apples,” she said. “There’s lots and lots of people who care about horses, but there’s some people who only care about the money.”
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nmilbert@tribune.com
