Scratching the Surface on Horse Breakdowns

DEL MAR —  In the last three weeks, one of trainer Doug Peterson’s horses suffered a fatal breakdown on the main track at Del Mar and another, an expensive claim, suffered a career-ending injury on the turf course. Peterson says he can’t trust Del Mar anymore.

“The meet’s only about half over and the grass course has had it,” he said. “There comes a time when you can look at a grass course and know you’re not doing well by the horses to run them over it. That time’s already here at this track.”

Peterson’s Farm Water, a 4-year-old gelding, was the first of eight horses to die after running at the meet, which opened July 22. A ninth horse was euthanized after breaking a leg in a training accident Thursday.

The last race of Farm Water’s life was a six-furlong sprint on dirt. He was one of six horses that died in the first six days of the meet.

“They had a fair here just a few days before the season opened, and there wasn’t enough time to get the main track ready,” Peterson said. “You can’t work up the track and expect to put it back together in the short time they had. What I’m going to do next year is not run anything early. I train horses that last, and I can’t afford to lose them.”

Peterson’s other hard-luck horse at the meet was Prose. Peterson claimed Prose from trainer Darrell Vienna for $80,000 as the 3-year-old Irish-bred colt won a 1 1/16-mile grass race Thursday. Friday it was found that Prose has a severely displaced sesamoid--a small seed-shaped bone--in his right foreleg and will undergo surgery today.

Peterson delivered his criticism of the turf course four days after jockeys had complained about soft spots on the surface. A $78,000 race was taken off the grass and run on dirt on Monday. Joe Harper, president of Del Mar, said that a faulty sprinkler system resulted in the course’s being over-watered.

“The grass here used to be taller, like Eastern tracks,” Peterson said. “But this year it looked like they cut it before the meet, and now there are holes that they’ve filled in with sand. There are bound to be bad spots. They just can’t plug all of them.”

Harper is puzzled by all the breakdowns and says he’s had few complaints from horsemen. He said that one veteran trainer, Eddie Gregson, told him that the Del Mar track was in the best condition it has ever been.

Al Schwitzer, a veteran exercise rider who has been galloping top horses for 48 years, many of them the best in Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel’s barn, said Del Mar’s main track is inconsistent.

“One day it’s fluffy, and the next day it’s tight,” Schwitzer said. “When it’s like that, horses just don’t want to jog on it. It has to be the track. You’ve got the same sound horses, and one day they want to work and another day they don’t.”

Harper said the three Southern California tracks--Del Mar, Hollywood Park and Santa Anita--need to work together to have uniform racing surfaces.

“What we’re experiencing is a change in surfaces when the horses moved from Hollywood to Del Mar,” said Ray Baran, Del Mar’s track veterinarian. “The track isn’t as deep here as it is up there. Horses will do fine if you just keep things the same. If they walked on asphalt all the time, they’d be all right, or if you kept them in a plowed field, they’d handle it, but go from one to the other and there’s trouble.”

Hollywood Park spent about $500,000 to improve its track, introducing a surface with less silt and clay and more sand. It is held together by an inorganic sports grid that’s supposed to provide improved footing.

Many trainers and jockeys welcomed the surface at first, but there were complaints by the time the meet ended last month, two days before Del Mar opened.

“The last few weeks of the meet, I think [maintenance of the track] got away from them,” veterinarian Kurt Hoffman said.

Gregson, who said that Del Mar’s track is no different from last year when there were six racing fatalities, moved his horses to Santa Anita halfway through this year’s Hollywood Park meet.

“I had no choice,” he said. “So many of them were getting hurt that I had to do it. I have a theory about all the injuries at Del Mar, and it’s just a theory:

“The track was sandier and deeper at Hollywood, and the horses got into the habit of not protecting themselves. Then they came here and thought they’d be able to do the same thing. But the track at Del Mar isn’t as deep, and it’s taking the horses time to realize that. They’re smart about taking care of themselves, but you can’t move them to a different surface in a matter of days and expect them to know overnight.”

Trainer Bob Baffert’s stable has been hit hard here. Real Quiet, winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, suffered a hind leg injury that has ended his season; and on Thursday another top 3-year-old, Prosperous Bid, suffered career-ending sesamoid injuries.

“All the tracks in California ought to use the Hollywood Park surface,” Baffert said. “They showed a lot of guts to try what they did. It’s got a good cushion and it’s consistent.”

After Skip Away shipped from New York to California and won the Hollywood Gold Cup in July, his trainer, Sonny Hine, told friends that he wouldn’t be returning to run in today’s Pacific Classic because he had heard bad reports about the Del Mar track. Skip Away also won last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic at Hollywood Park.

“I think California tracks get a bad rap,” Baffert said. “Skip Away came to Hollywood Park twice, ran his races and he’s still out there running.”

Harper said that Del Mar spends about $500,000 a year to maintain its track. He will consider, for the second time, installing a Hollywood Park-type surface for next season.

“We thought about it this year,” he said. “But at the end of the Hollywood Park meet, a lot of the horsemen up there were not supporting the change, so we decided not to do it.”