The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission heard the final veterinary reports for the abbreviated Churchill Downs spring meet and Keeneland's April meet at its regularly-scheduled meeting on June 20.
KHRC chief veterinarian Dr. Nick Smith told commissioners that prior to switching the remainder of the Churchill spring meet to Ellis Park, the track saw 1,855 total starts and, by the commission's count, 11 highly-publicized equine fatalities. That count does not include the fatal injury of Kentucky Derby contender Wild On Ice, who suffered a fracture in training prior to the actual start of the meet, although his injury is included in year-end overall totals. (Officials track fatalities in Kentucky “per race meet” at the end of each track's meeting, so fatalities that happen outside of the dates of a meet are counted separately at the end of the year.)
That makes for a rate of 5.93 fatalities per 1,000 starts (or, if Wild On Ice is included in the total, 6.46 per 1,000) — significantly higher than the national average of 1.25 per 1,000 starts recorded by the Equine Injury Database in 2022.
According to analysis by the Paulick Report of previous presentations before the KHRC, Churchill's rate varies by race meeting but has been as low as zero and as high as 1.85 per 1,000 starts over the past two years.
Upon being asked by commissioners, Smith said there had been no racing or training fatalities at Ellis Park through six racing cards. He said the regulatory veterinarian team is “very adept at moving track to track. It's a pretty seamless transition from Churchill to Ellis.”
Throughout the meet, Churchill had 53 veterinary scratches, 33 of which came as the result of morning pre-race exams; another 20 were scratched between the paddock and the gate, either for soundness issues or accidents in the paddock or gate. There were 212 horses claimed, with 20 claims voided for unsoundness after the race.
Those figures are roughly in line with Keeneland's spring meeting, which saw 1,262 starts. There were 44 vet scratches there, 31 of which after morning pre-race exams, 13 of which were on-track pre-race. There were 85 claims at Keeneland, seven of which were voided afterwards for unsoundness. Keeneland's meet included three racing fatalities and one training fatality, all the result of musculoskeletal injuries.
There were 80 horses added to the veterinarian's list at Churchill Downs, and 66 added to the veterinarian's list at Keeneland. Most of those were based on pre-race examination results, but also included some horses who exited races with a soundness problem, bled, or were treated for heat distress. It does not include horses who were placed on the list temporarily as the result of receiving therapeutic medication or treatment. Some treatments or drug administrations require a set amount of time on the list to ensure analgesic or other physical impacts have worn off before the horse can race.
KHRC veterinary staff provide these statistical run-downs to the commission at the conclusion of each regularly-scheduled race meeting. Kentucky's racetracks all report injuries to the Equine Injury Database, although only Keeneland permits some of those figures to be made public. Previous reports are available in the meeting materials archive from previous KHRC meetings.
The current Churchill meet at Ellis is scheduled to run through July 3. On July 7, Ellis will begin what was its regularly-scheduled meeting, which will run through Aug. 27.
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