Several trainers with horses entered at Indiana Grand on Wednesday and Thursday are concerned that the track's decision to move up post times, from 2:25 p.m. to 10:00 a.m., could cause their horses to test above the state's threshold for therapeutic medications.
Indiana Grand management officially announced the time change on Monday, due to projected high temperatures. By that point, however, trainers had already treated their horses with legal medications on Sunday, 72 hours out from the original post time for Wednesday's races.
That 4 1/2-hour difference in post times could prove to be significant in post-race testing — especially, trainers argued, considering the extremely small amounts at which the lab is able to test for therapeutic medications.
Eric Halstrom, Vice President and General Manager of Racing at Indiana Grand, said that while he understood the trainers' concerns, there would be no special dispensation from the commission, and that the allowable thresholds for those medications would remain at their present levels. If trainers did not believe their horses would pass post-race testing, or were concerned, Halstrom indicated that there would be no penalty for scratching.
“In this heat, for the last couple of weeks, the stewards have been letting anybody out because of the heat,” Halstrom said. “I'm more than supportive of them scratching, if that's what they feel they need to do.”
Indiana Grand does have lights on the dirt course, but not on the turf, and a pair of state-bred turf stakes races scheduled for Wednesday's card would have to have been moved had the track chosen to push the post times back, instead of moving them up.
“Those people have been paying into those races, and they deserve the right to run in them as scheduled,” said Halstrom. “Essentially what it came down to, we were either going to have to cancel, or we were going to do this.”
Wednesday's card saw a total of 18 scratches from 101 entries. Four of those were main-track-only entrants, and two were from the also-eligible list. The average field size was 9.18 starters before scratches; after scratches, average field size decreased to 7.54 starters, a difference of 17.9 percent.
By way of comparison, Monday's card, which was held at the regularly-scheduled post time of 2:25 p.m., saw eight scratches, including two also-eligibles. The average field size was 8.2 starters before scratches; after scratches, average field size decreased to 7.4 starters, a difference of 9.8 percent.
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