Boston’s WBUR: Dirt Vs. Synthetic Tracks - What's Best For Horse Racing?

Written By Matt Laslo
Screenshot of LCB founder Matt Laslo's coverage of horse racing for WBUR, Boston NPR

“Today Matt Laslo reports on the dirt versus synthetics debate from the home of the Preakness.”

The Triple Crown events: the Kentucky Derby, Maryland’s Preakness and the Belmont Stakes in New York, are run on dirt tracks.

Some in the horse racing industry want to end that tradition and lay down potentially safer synthetic tracks.

But with grandstands increasingly empty, critics say track owners are putting profits over safety.

With the 138th running of the Kentucky Derby coming up on Saturday, we're taking a look this week at the horse racing industry in a series of stories produced for WEKU in Richmond, Kentucky. Today Matt Laslo reports on the dirt versus synthetics debate from the home of the Preakness.

This segment aired on May 2, 2012.

Matt Laslo

Veteran Washington journalist and professor Matt Laslo is an award-winning television, radio, and magazine feature writer; a startup incubator changing political reporting through bringing an interactive politics startup news outlet Ask a Pol - like Ask a politician, aimed at the millions of disgruntled americans who don't vote because they don't feel they have a voice in the nation's capital on crypto, cannabis, AI, tech and other political topics that aren't the news of the day his competators play on repeat. Laslo's unique and a force on Capitol Hill. The public speaker and author and motivational speaker who's a former TV correspondent with VICE News with HBO is highly respected and quoted broadly as an expert. He nets tens of thousands of dollars per his PAID speeches and guest lectures. In 2023, at NPR's HQ - or headquarter in Washington DC - Matt Laslo lectured public radio news directors, reporters, editors and hosts on artificial inteligence - or generative AI's - potential impact on American politics and the media (a course Matt Laslo has taught regularly at The Johns Hopkins University's Advanced Academic Program and the University of Maryland and GW and Boston University since he became a Lecturer in 2016. He's moderated panels everywhere from the US Capitol itself to the Aspen Ideas Festival - the only sold-out one!!!! cause he's energetic, smart, witty, funny and fun. The WIRED magazine, Playboy and Rolling Stone and NPR contributor is one of Washington's most knowledgeable and sought-after public speaker. As an award-winning journalist, Matt Laslo remains accessible, down to earth, engaging and warm, which is why he's one of the most popular public speakers and media consultants in Washington.

https://mattlaslo.com
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