Slower doesn't mean safer

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Remember when most all race tracks liked to soup up their track a bit for big days and have them playing faster than par?

You'd always have the crazy people who would say "the track is so hard it might hurt some horses" out posting in force.

Now, on these big showcase days in New York, you're seeing Eskanderya win by a football field in just 1:49.97 - on the same card, Pletcher's Nite Light was beaten less than a length in a Grade 3 Excelsior that needed 1:51.43 - both horses were sidelined.

Another Pletcher horse from that day, Munnings, was 3rd as the 6/5 favorite in the Grade 1 Carter .. he should have been sidelined on the basis of his two subsquent horrific performances. The other sprint stakes was won by Eightyfiveinafifty - his last sound performance - but that race was marred by the breakdown of El Rocco.

Just 23 horses competed in the four stakes on that card - and while you only had one breakdown.. you had a few who got hurt and haven't started again - and others like Awesome Act (16 Beyer next out) Munnings (37 and 51 Beyers with perferct trips next two) and Eightyfiveinafifty (beaten 35+ lengths total at 3/2 and 2/1 next two) who ran like they were off.

Drosselmeyer's final time of 2:31.57 in winning the Belmont was the 2nd slowest time since 1970. He's sidelined.

I'm not saying the track had anything to do with it - it's all coincidental - but slower tracks certainly don't mean safer tracks.

If what Jerry Brown is hearing from all the track supers he talks to is correct - they keep adding more cushion to the racetracks over time because they assume it makes racing less stressful ... yet horses at all levels appear more and more fragile all the time.