There’s a tremendous science experiment taking place.
It’s by no means scholarly work, but it is a matter of life and death, and the result will greatly expose the problematic variables.
The controls of the experiment are Santa Anita and Saratoga. The variable is Jerry Hollendorfer.
This past week Santa Anita officials told the Hall of Famer that he must vacate his stalls after the fourth horse under his program died this year at the track. This move, it would seem, is Santa Anita trying to save face, making Hollendorfer a scapegoat, taking him out to the town square.
“I thought the ruling was extreme and I don’t really think I’ve done anything wrong, but I would be willing to step away from racing for a while,” Hollendofer said in Paulick Report story said. “I don’t want to. I’ve practically devoted my whole life to this game.”
At 73, with over100 horses in his care and dozens of employees, has he really forgotten how to send a horse out onto the track safe and sound, without heat on its ankles? When horses like Battle of Midway, relatively classy horses breakdown, it’s likely — and sadly — bad luck. Though all horses can and should receive equal care, graded stakes winners get a bit more of a rub down.
So when NYRA, and Saratoga in particular, opened its stalls to Hollendorfer, it put its belief in the trainer’s ability to bring horses to one of the safest tracks on the planet and deliver them back to the barn in one piece. This will be one of the great narratives of the Saratoga meet, depending on how many horses Hollendorfer decides to stable at the Spa.
This is a two-pronged story. Saratoga likely wants to prove its superiority in safety. In essence, it’s saying, We’ll take your maligned trainer. His horses won’t break down on our tracks. If they do, it’s on him.
Santa Anita, on the other hand, will watch with similar apprehension. Should Hollendorfer’s horses perform well and, more importantly, remain unbroken, the Santa Anita racing surface will be called into question.
The Stronach Group issued a cease and desist order against the trainer saying, “Individuals who do not embrace the new rules and safety measures that put horse and rider safety above all else, will have no place at any Stronach Group racetrack. We regret that Mr. Hollendorfer’s record in recent months at both Santa Anita and Golden Gate Fields has become increasingly challenging and does not match the level of safety and accountability we demand. Effective immediately, Mr. Hollendorfer is no longer welcome to stable, race or train his horses at any of our facilities.”
With animal rights groups waving pitchforks, with the government starting to put pressure on the sport and CNN stoking the flames with headlines like Horses keep dying at Santa Anita. Here’s what we know: 29 horses have died at Santa Anita this season. It’s nowhere near the track’s deadliest year—not by a long shot, it’s no wonder Santa Anita came down on heavy on Hollendorfer. The hammer of salacious click bait lands hard.
Santa Anita will soon see even more sniper lasers dancing across its chest. It hosts this year’s Breeders’ Cup World Championships, a time when NBC will dig deep into the travails of the track and racing fans and critics alike will be watching every race expecting a horse to come up lame, launch its jockey and bring out the screens. Where’s Bob Costas when we need him?
Every race will be a suspenseful thriller in the worst way possible where actual lives matter.
So Saratoga, and a few other tracks, are willing to put their running surfaces on the line. We will take your pariahs and prove that if the horse is sound, our dirt, our turf, will keep them in one, beautiful piece.
Of course there are so many moving parts. Horses do step wrong. With so much force landing on a leg the size of a human forearm, the slightest misstep can — and has proven to be — fatal.
It could be that Hollendorfer will bring horses that are stout and sound — monsters like Songbird — to the Spa and everything will go off as planned. Saratoga might vindicate Hollendorfer and increase the heat on the hottest topic in all of horse racing.
Hard to believe, but the summer in Upstate New York and Southern California just got a whole lot hotter.
Brendan O’Meara is a freelance writer and author of Six Weeks in Saratoga. (@BrendanOMeara)
