At Keeneland, they take the safety of the horses and the jockeys very seriously, the reason why Dr. Stuart Brown was brought on board in 2020. As Keeneland's Vice President of Equine Safety, it is Brown's job to do whatever is necessary to protect the sport's competitors. Brown was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week on the TDN Writers' Room Podcast Presented by Keeneland and he gave our team a tutorial on all Keeneland is doing to promote safety.
The effort includes the usage of StrideSAFE, which uses sensors to analyze the gait of horses and can find early signs of problems that can be avoided and should keep a horse off the racetrack while it recovers. At the upcoming Keeneland spring meet, all starters will be wearing the StrideSAFE sensors.
“They're all wearing it when they race,” Brown said. “So, currently, the application is for every runner that competes at our meet will be carrying one of those sensors in the saddle towel. The idea is to use the technology and then to provide the information that can be used as the tool that then can kind of give direct feedback to the to the trainers and their veterinarians. The wearable technologies hold a lot of promise for us.”
When asked about synthetic surfaces, Brown said the goal for Keeneland is to make their main dirt track as safe as any synthetic track. He also discussed efforts to keep jockeys healthy, both mentally and physically.
“The University of Kentucky in conjunction with the UK health care professionals come here and help us on race day and then take metrics,” he said. “We're able to look at our riders and see from race one to race 11 how those riders are doing. And we've had really good engagement with the rider colony here about participating in those activities. They look at balance and reaction time and all those aspects sort of translate into safety. It's been really interesting to kind of look at the feedback that they've been able to get back from the riders and the types of things they are looking for.”
In our breeding spotlight section, we took a look at the Coolmore stallion Echo Town and the WinStar stallion Constitution.
Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders' Association, Coolmore, 1/ST Racing, West Point Thoroughbreds, WinStar, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association and XBTV.com, the team of Randy Moss, Bill Finley and Zoe Cadman took a look back at the major races run last weekend, including the tour-de-force and redeeming victory turned in by Fierceness (City of Light) in the GI Curlin Florida Derby. They also looked ahead to the major races set to be run this weekend. Moss loves Impel (Quality Road) in the GI Ashland S. and Cadman loves Just F Y I (Justify) in the same race. That led to a friendly wager between the two.
For the podcast video, click here. For the audio version, click here.
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