As Churchill Downs faces mounting public pressure in the midst of a spike in equine fatalities, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority told media May 30 “nothing is off the table” in its quest to put a stop to the deaths.
In a video conference, HISA chief executive officer Lisa Lazarus reiterated the organization's statement to media from May 29, noting that the Authority has called in track expert Dennis Moore to make an independent assessment of the racing surface and that an extended meeting is expected to begin this afternoon between veterinarians from the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, Churchill Downs, and the Authority to learn more about the deaths.
Churchill has seen 12 equine fatalities in racing and training since the start of its current meeting in late April, putting the track ahead of spring meets in 2022 and 2021 which saw a total of nine and eight, respectively. The current meet is set to run into early July.
So far, Lazarus said there's no obvious pattern that links all the fatalities to any one trigger, though the veterinary summit that begins today will review training and veterinary records to see if there's a common factor that may not be readily apparent from a horse's past performance record. Because necropsy reports take three to four weeks to come back, the veterinary teams will be working without the benefit of necropsy reports on all 12 horses.
Racing and training fatalities are believed by experts to be multi-factorial events in which a series of risk factors converge on one horse.
Many racing fans have questioned whether the Authority could or should shut down racing at Churchill while fact-finding continues. Lazarus said the enabling federal legislation which created HISA does not give the Authority the ability to stop racing activities at a track, but that the Authority can prevent the export of a track's simulcast signal if the facility is found to be in violation of the Authority's safety regulations.
Still, the Authority has been in discussions with officials at Churchill behind the scenes throughout the spring meet.
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If you appreciate our work, you can support us by subscribing to our Patreon stream. Learn more.“I can tell you I've had multiple, long conversations with top-ranked executives at Churchill Downs over the weekend and they're really committed to doing the right thing,” said Lazarus. “My view is that if we were to make a recommendation to Churchill to shut down racing, they would accept that decision.”
And that's not completely off the table, Lazarus said. If there's an ongoing surface issue, it may make sense to pause racing while crews work to repair it. Earlier this month, Mick Peterson of the Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory analyzed the surface and Lazarus didn't believe at that time a pause in racing was appropriate.
“Given that there was nothing that was flagged or clearly a concern from a surface standpoint, that was not an action we thought was necessary and appropriate at that moment in time but obviously the reason we have the second opinion expert coming in is we want to make sure we're confident in that decision and since racing doesn't resume until Thursday, we have a couple of days to make that analysis,” she said.
It's important to note that Peterson takes measurements of a range of aspects from racing surfaces at tracks around the country and mostly seeks to compare a track's existing readings to its own previous readings. Horses' bones remodel in response to the workload and surface they're accustomed to, and changes in a surface can have an impact on that remodeling. Lazarus said Peterson's readings don't show changes in Churchill's surfaces from previous years that did not see this fatality rate, but that as a scientist, he's not able to officially declare a surface “safe.”
Among the measures that will be considered at the veterinary summit that began Tuesday – an entry review panel similar to what was in place at Santa Anita in the wake of that track's fatality spike in 2019. That panel looked for any red flags that may demonstrate based on past performance or veterinary records that a horse may not be suitable to race. No such panel exists in Kentucky, though the state does require a horse's private veterinarian sign off on a horse's fitness to enter a race.
It's also important to remember that even increased regulatory scrutiny does not always yield concrete answers as to why a fatality spike occurs.
“What I'm confident in is that we have the best people to look at this and to make recommendations,” said Lazarus. “The one thing I'll say is that if you look at the California experience and the breakdowns that were never really quite explained at Santa Anita – which was very different in how they presented to this situation – California put in place quite a number of different policies prospectively that vastly improved their record, at least as I see it. So I'm really hopeful and confident the team we have in place now, if there is genuinely a pattern, something that brings all of these cases together or at least a majority of them, then we will be able to see that.”
The post Lazarus: Nothing – Including A Pause In Racing – Is Off The Table When Addressing Churchill Fatalities appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
