Running on Rubber

On Tuesday opposing sides of the argument clashed at a small protest outside the offices of the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority in Lexington, according to local media reports. PETA representatives slammed the horse racing industry on its safety record, calling for an overall switch to synthetic, among other demands, while an equal number of people came out to counterprotest in support of the horse-racing authorities.

NEWSWEEK's Katie Paul talked about the risks and benefits of synthetic tracks with Jim Pendergest, general manager at Martin Collins Surfaces and Footings, which installs Polytrack in the United States. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: How does a synthetic track work differently than a dirt track?
Jim Pendergest: Martin Collins, who is a part owner in our company, was a show-jumping rider at an arena that didn't work very well in bad weather. He invented a wax-coated surface that drains very quickly, and it just happened to turn out to be safer for the horses. Horses just spring off of it. And with the water going through [the vertical drainage system], you never have a muddy track. It also has memory. When a horse's hoof indents a synthetic surface, it springs back to its original form. You can actually see it go right back up, so the next horse that steps in that spot is stepping in only a small indentation. When the horses are galloping on it, it feels like a very firm trampoline. The horses become confident because the footing is more consistent, so they're more sure of where to step. Exercise riders and jockeys also tell you their joints don't ache as much.

How much safer do you think it is for the horses?
We have seen a 50 percent reduction in catastrophic injuries at the racetracks where we have installed Polytrack. They had dirt at Arlington Park the year before it was installed and had 22 catastrophic breakdowns, while last year that number was reduced to 13. At Del Mar there were two catastrophic breakdowns, compared to eight the previous year. At Turfway Park they had 24; then the first year on Polytrack they only had three. The industry-wide number on dirt is 2.03 catastrophic breakdowns per 1,000 starts. On Polytrack that's cut in half, to 1.002, according to the official Equibase numbers.

What about recent studies showing that synthetics actually don't reduce risk?
According to the revised numbers—because there were some errors with the ones presented at the safety summit in March—for all synthetic surfaces there were 1.47 catastrophic injuries per 1,000 starts. For Polytrack it was 1.37 during that six-month time frame. And since they were looking at just a narrow window of time, if you look at the numbers for the entire three to four years since it's been installed, the number is 1.002, which indicates that we're reducing the risk by half. Making a safer track was the specific goal when we brought it to the United States.

There's also a risk in moving a horse between different types of surfaces, right?
No, not really. There are horses that like certain surfaces, so there are going to be horses that don't like synthetic surfaces. There are horses that do better on grass, horses that like dirt, and horses that like synthetic surfaces. Last year both the winner and the runner-up at the Kentucky Derby had their final prep on Polytrack. They actually seem to do well coming off Polytrack and going onto dirt.