The message to the horse racing industry in California must be clear: Implement tough safety standards at your tracks or risk the state closing them down altogether.

Gov. Gavin Newsom last week signed legislation giving the California Horse Racing Board greater authority to close tracks that aren’t adequately protecting the health and safety of horses and jockeys. That’s a good first step. But much more is needed.

This is a national sport and a national problem. The horse-racing industry should step up to set and enforce tough safety standards across the country before Congress or states like California do it for them.

The alarmingly high number of equine deaths at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Golden Gate Fields in Albany and other tracks around the country is unacceptable. The industry should require more transparency about horse injuries and deaths, and substantially increase penalties for owners and trainers who fail to put the safety of horses before profits.

The death toll since Dec. 30 at Santa Anita grew to 30 horses before its season ended on June 23. The Bay Area News Group’s Cat Ferguson and Elliott Almond reported Sunday that 18 horses had died at Golden Gate Fields during its winter season. From July 2008 to June 2018, 330 horses died at Golden Gate Fields while racing or training.

The New York Times reported in April that, according to the Jockey Club’s Equine Injury Database, an average of nearly 10 horses a week died at American racetracks in 2018. That’s about 500 horses a year. It’s an appalling number. The racehorse fatality rate in the United States is at least double that of racing tracks around the world.

The problem stems in part from the fact that there is no national organization that governs horse racing. Instead, each state has its own set of regulations, which leads to injury reporting abuses and inconsistent rules governing drugging of horses and when they should be stopped from racing because of injuries or overuse.

The industry should establish a national body with the clout to enforce tougher rules across the nation. It should begin by mandating reporting of all injuries into an electronic database and setting a strict set of horse-safety guidelines.

Following public outcry about deaths at Santa Anita, the owners of the track, The Stonach Group, tightened rules governing drugging of horses and banned several trainers from their facilities. That included Bay Area Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer, whose horse American Currency died during a training exercise June 22.

The ban stands as a significant blow to his legacy, but it’s unclear the extent to which other California racetracks or tracks in other states will adhere to The Stonach Group approach. The New York Racing Association and the Los Alamitos track in California have said that Hollendorfer would be allowed to train and run his horses at their facilities.