At a regularly-scheduled meeting of the Arizona Racing Commission on Feb. 15, commission officials indicated there may be some changes on the way to improve equine welfare at Turf Paradise. The track had been under scrutiny since the start of the meet for its fatality statistics, and was the focus of an investigative story published by the Paulick Report on Tuesday morning. That story detailed the case of Creative Plan, a claiming horse who was sent to a livestock auction with injuries after
You can find that story here.
Dr. Sue Gale, the Arizona Department of Gaming's chief veterinarian, said in her report at the meeting that fatality statistics at the current Turf Paradise had been “creeping up a little bit” from her previously-reported rate of 2.8 per 1,000 starts two weeks prior to 2.98 per 1,000 starts now.
“We are scratching more horses on pre-race exam,” said Gale. “It does seem that now we're about halfway through the meet. Some of the horses are showing some wear and tear. Again, the purpose of the pre-race exam is to do our best to identify horses that are at higher risk for injury.”
The most recent national average for 2020 was 1.41 per 1,000 starts.
Gale said that although Creative Plan's death took place weeks after his final race in early January, he was counted among her totals, though it's not clear whether his euthanasia last week was solely responsible for the increase.
Racing commissioner Rory Goreé expressed disgust at the case of Creative Plan.
“I think we've got to do a better job of coming up with answers and coming up with solutions,” said Goreé. “It seemed like with Creative Plan there was a lot of finger pointing going on and trying to cover our own butts. We've got to do a better job of coming up with solutions.
Goreé also said he wants to see more regulation around claiming in Arizona.
“Every morning I wake up and look at the board and it seems like there's another horse that has just wandered around on the backside and I think that's because these horses are getting claimed so much they don't know where they live,” said Goreé. “I'm hopeful that here in the near future we as a commission will be able to talk about some of these solutions and ideas and make Arizona the light it needs to be, that we're making the change and doing the right thing instead of being the laughingstock we are right now nationwide.
“We just keep reading the reports. The eyes are on us. It's not just Turf Paradise. The eyes are on all of us.”
Goreé said any changes to claiming regulations would need to go through the state attorney general's office.
Rudy Casillas, deputy director and racing division director, also announced on the call he has asked Gale to start requesting medical records for every horse entered at Turf Paradise, which would allow veterinarians to review them before pre-race exam.
Another of the potential changes coming could be third-party Lasix, which requires veterinarians administering Lasix to not be actively practicing on the backstretch. Third-party Lasix administration has been in place in many other jurisdictions for years, with the belief that keeping private practitioners out of stalls on race day reduces the likelihood a trainer could request last-minute administrations of prohibited or regulated medications in the hours before race time.
One of the things Gale said her team could use to improve their pre-race veterinary examinations was extra help, in the form of another veterinarian or an administrative assistant who can help flag at-risk horses for extra examination. So far, the state budget has not allowed for that extra assistance.
Gale has a system for rating horses green/yellow/red based on whether they have one or more risk factors that have been identified in Arizona as putting a horse at increased risk for injury. Gale said some horses had “many” factors in their history and that she tries to go through the list of upcoming examinations to color code them, but that the process takes about four hours' additional work per race card.
“I spend at least an hour a night after the races are over to try and do the same thing,” she said. “But my efforts are incomplete.”
Also at the Feb. 15 meeting, the commissions' three members unanimously agreed to grant a racing permit to Rillito Park, despite the track's apparent shortage of funds. The commission emphasized to the track that it would need to “tighten their belts” when putting on their racing meet. The track was granted a permit for racing years 2021, 2022, and 2023.
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