If you're a subscriber to the Equine Disease Communication Center, you've seen a fair number of alerts go out in recent years for new cases of Equine Infectious Anemia (EIA) and piroplasmosis. What you may not know is that the vast majority of cases of both diseases in recent years are coming from unsanctioned bush tracks.
In 2021, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recorded 103 cases of EIA, 84 of which came from current or former racing Quarter Horses that had spent time on the bush racing circuit or been exposed to a horse who had. The same year, 31 of 36 piroplasmosis cases came from racing Quarter Horses in the same circumstances. Since 2008, the agency has found 541 cases of piroplasmosis and 409 cases of EIA, all of which are racing Quarter Horses, many of which spent time on the bush circuit.
EIA is an incurable viral disease that can often be present without severe outward symptoms. An infected horse may, during acute infection, demonstrate jaundice, elevated heart rate or breathing, limb swelling, or bleeding from the nose. After an acute infection that have presented no outward signs, a horse becomes a life-long carrier. The disease is spread by blood, which means a carrier has the potential to infect other horses nearby if a fly were to bite the carrier and then an uninfected horse. Federal animal health guidelines state that infected horses must either be isolated from others for the rest of their lives or euthanized.
Piroplasmosis is not endemic to the United States. It's also a blood-borne disease that can be passed between horses via several species of tick. Like EIA, its symptoms can be non-specific and may include fever, anemia, jaundice, weight loss, and labored breathing and can also include colic or death. Horses that are found to be positive for piroplasmosis must also be placed under quarantine until they test negative or be euthanized. They may be treated with a drug called imidocarb dipropionate, but it can take a year or more after successful treatment for the horse to test completely negative and be eligible for quarantine release. The first cases of piroplasmosis began popping up in the United States in 2008 – making it, in epidemiological terms, a relatively new problem here – and came from the bush track population.
Dr. Angela Pelzel-McCluskey is an equine epidemiologist for USDA/APHIS and is responsible for doing epidemiological investigations on reportable equine diseases, including EIA and piroplasmosis. As a result, she has spent years studying the bush track scene.
The EIA and piroplasmosis cases she sees from the bush tracks are iatrogenic, meaning they originate from medical treatments on that population.
At one time, Pelzel-McCluskey said, the primary method of disease transmission in this population was the sharing of needles down the shed row. The USDA's efforts to educate horsemen about the importance of using a different needle and syringe for each horse have made progress, but there are still other vulnerabilities she said they're not thinking about. Pelzel-McCluskey said that because there are no medication regulations in unsanctioned racing, her research shows most horses on that circuit are getting some kind of injection at least once a day (including immediately prior to loading into the gate for a race).
“They're already getting more injections than any other horse in America,” she said. “And they'll reuse needles, syringes, and IV sets.
“Sometimes we'll go into a barn and they say, 'Oh no, I only use one needle and syringe per horse,' but they'll have that one rubber IV tubing set and they'll use it on everything. Even though we've gotten the needle/syringe message out over the years, they're still not understanding that when you finish with whatever you're infusing, you're getting blood blowback into the line and now that line is contaminated. In our veterinary hospitals, we throw them away after a single use or we clean, disinfect, and sterilize them. These guys don't do anything like that.”
Read more about unsanctioned or “bush” racing in this 2022 report
Another potential infection source is multiple-dose bottles of injectable drugs. If a handler dips a used needle into a multi-dose vial and then later uses a new needle to draw up a dose for a different horse, there's the risk that the first needle may have introduced contaminated blood into the bottle.
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Finally, Pelzel-McCluskey has found cases where bush trainers will practice direct blood doping. This may involve illegally shipping synthetic or harvested blood or plasma products from illegal manufacturers outside the United States, which could be contaminated, or directly pulling a sample of blood from one horse and injecting it into another.
“They may bring in blood from their favorite racehorse in Central America or Mexico, or they may just get it from another horse in the barn,” she said.
What's complicating the problem for Pelzel-McCluskey and others is the size of the bush racing circuit, which has exploded in the past five or six years through the power of social media.
“This is not a couple of guys that get together and match race in their back pasture,” she said. “This has now morphed into a very sophisticated, highly-marketed league of things happening across the country.”
Pelzel-McCluskey said in the course of her disease tracing work she has documented 111 bush track facilities in 28 states – some of which have sanctioned racetracks, and some of which do not. All those are Quarter Horse facilities, though Pelzel-McCluskey said last year she discovered two Standardbred bush tracks.
“What you're seeing with our EIA and piro cases is Quarter Horses, but we are seeing other kind of bush tracks emerge,” she said. “It's not just up to the Quarter Horses to deal with this.”
Horses, owners, and trainers are organized into racing “teams” that compete as organized leagues. While they all ship in to the track facility to run, they may be stabled together the rest of the time, or may be scattered across multiple locations. They also move frequently from one racing venue to another. A horse may transition from sanctioned racing to bush racing (which is considerably more lucrative for the connections) and stay in that world, or they may flip back and forth. After retirement from the bush circuit, many horses become barrel racers or otherwise find second careers, because in Pelzel-McCluskey's experience, very few can have viable breeding careers – possibly due to the years of drug use that came before retirement.
All this poses logistical challenges for USDA officials, and for horsemen who may (knowingly or unknowingly) have horses stabled near bush track runners. Although the cases the USDA has seen of both diseases are primarily coming from shared needles, equipment, or injectable products, the whole reason EIA and piroplasmosis are tracked by state and federal governments is that they can be dispersed by biting insects across a locality. Considering the limited or non-existent treatment options for both, that should be a major concern for all horsefolk, even if they don't participate in unsanctioned racing themselves.
“For piroplasmosis, that's not an endemic disease in the United States, we're not supposed to have it here,” she said. “But we do have competent tick vectors here that could spread it so we don't want to dump a bunch of piro-positive horses out with competent tick vectors and let it stew for a while. We don't want to become an endemic country.
“We do have concerns about that, for sure.”
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As a veterinarian, Pelzel-McCluskey said she has numerous welfare concerns about the practices she sees in place at unsanctioned tracks. Many bush tracks readily promote their entries and stream their races on social media in order to attract the huge crowds that fund their operations. Pelzel-McCluskey frequently sees horses being injected with unknown substances (though she has seen evidence it's frequently cocaine, meth, or Ritalin), buzzer use and unrestricted whip use in these contests. As documented by reporting from the Washington Post last summer, serious injuries to horses and/or riders are not uncommon and because the events are operating outside the law, there's no requirement they have medical staff on hand for horses or humans.
Unfortunately, in her role as a USDA employee, she's only able to deal with the disease transmission portion of the picture.
“We are there for horse health,” she said. “But we are really trying to work with them cooperatively to deal with the disease in the horses. With EIA that usually means getting the horse euthanized.
“We are putting on blinders to things we don't have any authority over … and they know we're not law enforcement. They know there's very little we can do about anything else they're doing that may be criminal activity.”
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