Hollywood Park is First California Track to Receive SAIA Accreditation

Hollywood Park, Inglewood, Calif.

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) announced that Hollywood Park has been fully accredited by the NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance following a complete review of all racing operations at the facility.

Hollywood Park is the fifth racing facility to be so designated by the Alliance, the accreditation being the culmination of a lengthy certification process that began with the track’s completion of a 48-page written application and continued as Hollywood Park hosted several meetings with Alliance officials. The on-site review included inspections of all facets of the racing facility, and interviews with track executives, racetrack personnel, jockeys, owners, trainers, stewards, regulators and fans.

Noteworthy findings at Hollywood included best practices in areas including equine ambulance services and equipment; participation in a groundbreaking training injury study coordinated by Drs. Jeff Blea and Wayne McIlwraith; and participation in track surface studies coordinated by Dr. Mick Peterson.

According to Mike Ziegler, Executive Director of the NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance, Hollywood Park exceeded recommended Alliance benchmarks in several areas.

The Alliance, formed last October with the goal of establishing national uniform standards in the areas of safety and integrity, includes 55 racetracks in North America and every major national horsemen’s organization. Alliance certification standards cover five broad areas: injury reporting and prevention; creating a safer racing environment; aftercare and transition of retired racehorses; uniform medication, testing and penalties; and safety research.

Way to go, Hollywood Park!

Read the full story here.

NTRA Reaches out to Blogosphere

There's good news for horse racing, as the industry moves forward into the 21st Century and takes advantage of the powerful marketing tools now available through the Internet.

For some time, the NTRA (National Thoroughbred Racing Association) has been at the forefront in the industry, utilizing the latest technological tools to communicate with fans and prospective fans -- including the traditionally hard-to-reach youth demographic. They have done this by establishing a presence on Facebook, Twitter, and through NTRA blogs. In addition, they have been reaching out to the fast-growing world of independant horse racing bloggers, including the formation of an online task force that offers suggestions and ideas from the front lines of the blogosphere.

Today I participated in a conference call hosted by the NTRA for Thoroughbred horse racing bloggers. The conference had a two-fold purpose: to update bloggers on what the NTRA is doing via social networking sites in the weeks leading up to each of the Triple Crown events, and to gather input and ideas -- a kind of telephonic brainstorming session. And there are some pretty exciting things happening right now!

NTRA participants on the call included Alex Waldrop and Fritz Widaman. Widaman announced that NTRA has hired Caton Bredar to do personal interviews all week on the backstretch at Churchill Downs -- with trainers, jockeys, and owners -- which will be posted regularly on NTRA.com. NTRA will also be Twittering from the backstretch, starting tomorrow, with a continual feed of tweets from Derby connections. The interactive capabilities of Twitter will allow fans to send questions to jockeys and trainers via NTRA's Twitter Page, and have them answered on the spot! NTRA will also be sending tweets throughout the day Saturday from the track.

On his "Straight Up" blog, Waldrop said, "The Internet has opened up a whole new avenue for marketing and promoting horse racing. Our sport is tailor made for the medium. We are a fact intensive, highly interactive, opinion-driven business. If you don't think so, just read a few of the comments to my blogs and you will see that almost everyone in racing has an opinion and is not afraid to express it."

Here, here! Let's see if we can keep the ball rolling.