SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- Travers looms tomorrow, questions to be answered on a somewhat hazy 3-year-old season. Yesterday's focus, however, was on the Wednesday fall of jockey Michael Straight at Arlington Park near Chicago. And a reminder of how fortunate we've been at Saratoga this year. Straight, 24, broke four vertebrae when his horse collapsed and he was thrown in Arlington's eighth race. He was the second jockey severely injured in spills on the Polytrack oval, the first being Rene Douglas, who is still recovering from a May 23 accident. Both riders face potential paralysis as a result of their falls. I'm not one for knee-jerk reactions, but Straight's fall prompts questions over the safety of the Polytrack at my home oval -- not because of the horse's death, but due to the surface's lack of give that has riders failing to walk away from spills. This hasn't only been an issue in the afternoons, but in the mornings as well. It's time to make a change. I understand the high-dollar income at stake here, the horses that need to run, the handle that needs to come in, the many issues on many different levels that require the racetrack to run its' prescribed allotment of racing days without cancellation. And I know it's a dream. But what if just once, track management made the safety of equine and human athletes the utmost priority? I'm not talking about promising to look into the issues, to get something done when the meet is over. I'm talking about a pro-active decision not to run another race, to put another rider's life at risk, until the problem is taken care of. All tracks -- especially artificial -- should be required to meet an industry standard for cushion and consistency. And horses should not be required to start, and jockeys should not be required to ride, over dangerous surfaces. That's the bottom line.