There is an article currently making the rounds in two communities — equestrians and anti-cellphone activists — purporting to explain the unusual rash of horse deaths at the Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville, Kentucky (home of the famous Kentucky Derby), and placing the blame on an electronic device called the StrideSAFE.
That article, and the claims it makes, are patently false and scientifically absurd. This article will explain why.
So what’s going on at Churchill Downs?
Twelve horses died there in various circumstances over the space of just a few weeks in early 2023, and this is more than usual (horses do die at racetracks as it’s a dangerous environment for them, as explained in more detail below). The track undertook the unprecedented move of suspending racing activities there pending an investigation into the cause — they’re trying to see if maybe there’s something going on with the dirt or grass areas to explain the high number of fatal injuries, and so far found nothing. Here is a recent article from the New York Times with more detail on the situation.
So what’s this “StrideSAFE” thing?
Horses at the track are being equipped with an electronic device called the StrideSAFE. It incorporates accelerometers and GPS speed and location data to precisely measure the movements of the horse. The idea is that if the horse has an injury, the change in its gait will be recorded on the StrideSAFE. At the completion of the ride, the device shows a green, light amber, dark amber, or red light. If it’s not green, the horse is showing signs that may be consistent with an injury.
And what’s the deal with this new article blaming the device?
Enter anti-cellphone activist Arthur Firstenberg. For a long time, he has been lobbying in favor of his false belief that cellphone signals — in fact, electromagnetic signals of any kind, like all non-ionizing radiation, are harmless to living tissue. This has been proven exhaustively, but nevertheless, he is not alone in his belief — we’ve all seen 5G protesters on street corners and at the erection of new towers. Firstenberg’s organization is called The Cellular Phone Task Force.
He wrote this article, and it’s been getting passed around all over the place. He believes the StrideSAFE emits electromagnetic radiation (it does not) and/or includes a cellphone data transmitter (it does not) and/or reads the horse’s microchip for some reason (it does not). It doesn’t even do Bluetooth. The StrideSAFE has a data connection where you can plug it into a computer to analyze the data from the accelerometers, but it has no wireless connectivity of any kind.
Nevertheless, Firstenberg claims the StrideSAFE device’s (nonexistent) “harmful” radio emissions are the probable cause of the horse deaths. His article makes statements such as:
We have known for decades that horses’ lives are shattered by radio waves.
No, we haven’t, because that’s false. No living organisms are impacted by radio waves in any way.
So let’s get to the meat of his article, the one big paragraph where Firstenberg explains his claim. Let us break down this paragraph:
This STRIDESafe device monitors the horse’s movements 2,400 times per second throughout the race,
This phrase — not even a whole sentence — is the only almost-true statement made in the entire paragraph. It would be closer if he got the name right: it’s StrideSAFE not STRIDESafe. Not a strong start.
The device has a tiny MEMS-based accelerometer (like the one in your phone) that samples 800 times per second (2400 if you count all three axes) to record the horse’s movements exactly.
…sending 2,400 pulses of radio frequency (RF) radiation every second through the body of the horse.
No it doesn’t. StrideSAFE does not include any type of radio transmitter. It is recording movement data internally, not broadcasting anything into the horse.
It also contains a GPS component that communicates with global positioning satellites.
It records the horse’s location and speed with a GPS receiver. It does not send anything or “communicate with” the satellites.
It also communicates with the RFID chip implanted in the left side of every horse’s neck, ensuring that the chip also emits radiation throughout the race.
No, it doesn’t. To read an animal’s microchip, you have to place the wand directly on the animal where the chip is, you can’t have it down where the StrideSAFE is mounted. But anyway, as there is no need to read a horse’s microchip, StrideSAFE does not incorporate an RFID reader.
Regardless, such microchips do not have the ability to “emit radiation,” as they are unpowered.
And because every racehorse wears horseshoes made of aluminum, which is one of the best conductors, the frequencies that are conducted from both the STRIDESafe device and the RFID chip throughout the horse’s body are absorbed and reradiated by its four shoes.
No “frequencies” are being conducted, absorbed, or re-radiated. There are no radio signals involved. (Also he got the product’s name wrong again.)
Each horse, then, carries not one but six continuously radiating antennas throughout each race at Churchill Downs. So with 14 horses normally competing in each race, there are 84 antennas among animals in close proximity to one another running around the track.
I was willing to bet that he’d get 6⨉14 wrong, but 84 is correct. Anyway, nothing is radiating anything — so, wrong again.
It’s astounding. Virtually every single thing he says is completely false, exhaustively proven to be false, and well known to be false.
It seems clear that Firstenberg is either hopelessly technologically illiterate (which is not what you’d look for in the head of a nonprofit called The Cellular Phone Task Force), or is utterly incompetent as a reporter, as he clearly did not bother to learn anything at all about the most basic functions of a device he was making such broad and weighty claims against — not even its correct name. Considering the possibly libelous nature of his article, I wouldn’t be surprised if he hears from StrideSAFE’s attorneys.
I learned about the product by speaking with representatives of StrideSAFE LLC; they make their contact information easy to find, and they were helpful and very communicative. It’s unclear why this most basic journalistic tool — asking people for information — escaped Firstenberg.
So what is killing the horses at Churchill Downs?
Equestrian sports are inherently dangerous, for both riders and horses. Everyplace you might visit where horses are boarded, ridden, or trained, you’ll find signs up reminding you of this fact, and that your participation is at your own risk.
This is especially so of racehorses. These are typically very young horses — much younger than horses ridden on ranches or trail rides. Racehorses are usually 2 years old, and yet horses’ skeletons are not fully grown and matured until they are about 6. These are long, slender breeds designed for speed, not for durability. And more is demanded of them than in almost any other equestrian sport, certainly with more money on the line. Pressure is high.
Make no mistake, horse racing is dangerous for the horses. There is a whole conversation about this aspect of the sport, especially among animal welfare groups; and rightfully so. It’s a very valid and important topic, just not the one we’re debating today.
With injuries to racehorses so common, all too often these injuries lead to unavoidable euthanasia. This article found that in an average year, 25 horses die at Churchill Downs; 45 at Belmont Park; and 17 every summer at Saratoga. On average 3 horses die every day at racetracks in the United States. For 12 to have died in the span of a few weeks at Churchill Downs is barely a statistical blip. In any set of random data, there will be peaks and valleys, by definition. It’s entirely plausible that there is nothing unusual happening at Churchill Downs.
This article from WLKY Louisville tells what we know about these 12 deaths in particular. All are from the usual causes; none are mysterious enough to demand an exotic explanation like what Firstenberg claimed.
So why the StrideSAFE devices?
Because they are designed to detect the kind of injuries that result in most of these cases of euthanasia. A horse can’t tell you “Hey, my ankle hurts, can we slow down?” and sometimes his physical reactions to the pain are too subtle for the rider and trainers to notice. But if the StrideSAFE comes back with a red light, that horse can be taken for a veterinary exam even without noticeable symptoms.
It’s a tool for helping the horses; not for harming them.
The peak in deaths at Churchill Downs is certainly worrisome, but when we look at the annualized data, it’s not unusual — as just discussed. Also, there is no correlation between use of the StrideSAFE and horse deaths, and no plausible science foundation for Firstenberg’s ludicrous and ignorant claims.
If you have seen his article, or any others parroting the same basic claims, please take a moment to understand the science of what’s going on.
I found this making the rounds, and asked Brian what the lowdown was. Thank you, Brian, for going into such detail!