This week at Keenland, one of the horses I own, a two year old filly, broke her leg in her final breeze on the Keenland Poly before what was suppossed to be her debut race next week.
I know that one isolated incident doesn\'t mean alot relative to the whole synthetic debate but up until now, I have been able to rationalize my issues as a handicapper with the poly by convincing myself that, as an owner, I will benefit from the improved safety and soundness of the horses who are training on the synthetics.
Again, I know that just because this filly broke her leg on the poly doesn\'t mean that poly isn\'t safer but there have been alot of statistics that I have seen recently (including some good ones posted on this board) that injuries on the poly are just as freqent as injuries on the dirt. I know that there were two breakdowns in the first two days of training on the new pro-ride surface at SA. Again, another isloated example there but these isolated examples are being backed up by data with much larger sample sizes that suggest that synthetic injuries are just as frequent, albeit sometimes different in terms of soft tissue injuries versus \"concussion based\" injuries.
This all leads to the question of, if the synthetics aren\'t any safer and they are detracting from the betting interests, why are we as an industry using them?
I have spoken with several leading east coast based trainers who hate the synthetics, I know most bettors struggle with them and they don\'t seem to be any safer for the horses.
As a happy side note, we were able to save the filly\'s life with surgery but I doubt she will ever race which is a shame as she was by Smart Strike out of a Deputy Minister mare and she was breezing extremley well leading up to her debut.
Tough game
