Decorated My Life Video Triggers Talk of Veterinary Scrutiny Modification

Following Decorated My Life (Mehmas {Ire})'s catastrophic injury in Saturday's Sweet Life S. at Santa Anita, a 15-second video clip shared on social media that appears to show the 3-year-old filly slightly off on her right-front as she jogged to the start of the race has spurred talk of modification to the layers of pre-race veterinary scrutiny for horses that run on the track's downhill turf course.

A regulatory veterinarian is present to watch horses warm up on the level before they head up the hill—on which the Sweet Life S. was run—and then again when they get to the gate.

According to California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) equine medical director, Jeff Blea, the video appears to be from when Decorated My Life negotiated the incline on the way to post—a stage when a regulatory veterinarian can scrutinize individual horses on a TV monitor but not from the track itself.

“I spoke with the track vet and we're thinking of making a couple modifications, especially for horses that are warming up on the turf course—and the downhill turf course in particular—so maybe we can get an eye on these horses as they're going up the hill, not just on a flat surface,” said Blea, who followed-up the interview in an email with a study showing how even slight slopes can affect lameness exams in horses.

According to Blea, Decorated My Life passed multiple layers of veterinary oversight before Saturday's race, including an exam by the attending veterinarian prior to entry, another exam the morning of the race, along with regulatory scrutiny in the paddock, while warming up and behind the gate.

“She was evaluated when she got to the gate and there was no lameness present,” said Blea, about the daughter of Mehmas (Ire), trained by Simon Callaghan.

All horses entered to race must also pass the muster of a multi-person review panel who assess a horse's potential for catastrophic injury. “I was on this panel, and this horse did not present any what we consider at-risk factors,” he said.

But Blea doesn't deny the video appears to show Decorated My Life presents slight lameness in the video which was widely circulated on social media.

“What I saw is visual right front inconsistency or lameness,” said Blea, of the video. “It's a short window. It's there. You can't argue that. You can't deny that. Those are the facts.”

Dionne Benson, chief veterinary officer for 1/ST racing, said that “day-in, day-out” there are at minimum two regulatory veterinarians watching the horses on the track on race-day.

“Both vets go to the paddock. One vet then goes in the truck, follows the field. But because we realize that was a potential blind-spot, we had a camera system in the downstairs—below the winner's circle—that allows them to follow horses [on TV monitors]. But then, they could have been following a different horse when the horse was doing what is on this video. They could have been looking at a different view, a different angle,” said Benson.

Decorated My Life's jockey, Joe Bravo, was taken to hospital following the incident, and took off his mounts the following day as a precautionary measure.

“You're talking about a jockey who's not aggressive—by that, I mean he's not going to push a horse that he's not comfortable on,” said Benson. “If he didn't feel it and we didn't see in that moment what was going on—or what looked to be going on—it's very challenging to do better.”

Racing on the downhill turf course was temporarily halted in the spring of 2019, when Arms Runner suffered a catastrophic breakdown in the GIII San Simeon S. When asked if the track was considering another such moratorium, Benson pointed out that Decorated My Life was the first such injury on the course after four injury-free meets. The track also had no race-day main track fatalities last year.

“We have very strict protocols about which horses and which jockeys are allowed to go down the downhill,” said Benson. “We definitely do a good job of trying to remind the jockeys of the challenges of riding down the downhill, and that's something [ex-jockey] Aaron Gryder does very well.”

As happens with every horse that suffers a catastrophic injury in California, Decorated My Life will undergo a necropsy examination—this time at a UC Davis-affiliated facility in San Bernardino.

The CHRB will also conduct a mandatory mortality review into the incident, which includes the pulling of the horse's veterinary records and regulatory exam history, along with interviews with the attending veterinarians and other potentially involved parties.

“And then finally, the review is generally with the trainer,” said Blea. “We're taking this very seriously. One fatality is one too many. Period.”

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Pegasus World Cup Partners with Equine MediRecord

1/ST's Pegasus World Cup has partnered with the Irish technology company Equine MediRecord and its group Business Infusions to digitize equine welfare protocols for this weekend's Pegasus World Cup card at Gulfstream Park. EMR representatives will be on-site at the Hallandale track to help log each horse's information on the EMR system. The platform, which allows for the full veterinary history of each horse to be collected digitally and recorded securely, will be mandatory and will provide all entrants, trainers and veterinarians with a user-friendly system to comply with medication protocols for this year's event.

According to a release from EMR, “Integrity of the veterinary information will be ensured using the unique algorithms found in the EMR technology. Once the records are entered into the system they cannot be altered. Results are submitted digitally to designated regulators and officials ensuring the highest level of integrity and transparency of veterinary records.”

“We welcome the support of Equine MediRecord to the Pegasus World Cup for a second year,” said Dr. Dionne Benson, Chief Veterinary Officer, 1/ST RACING. “The immediate access to relevant medical information significantly enhances safety and welfare for our equine athletes and further enforces the 1/ST RACING standards of integrity and accountability in our sport.”

Pierce Dargan, Chief Executive Officer, Equine MediRecord said, “We are excited about our partnership with 1/ST and doing all we can to help ensure that best horse welfare and transparency protocols are followed in equine sport while ensuring participants do not have to enter information multiple times to be cleared. We are thrilled to be partnering with 1/ST for the Pegasus World Cup 2023.”

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Inaugural Horse Racing Women’s Summit: Women at `Tipping Point’ in the Sport

Given the current snail's pace at which the gender gap is meaningfully shrinking, it'll take more than 250 years for women to reach professional parity with men–just two-and-a-half short centuries, for those who think in blocks.

That was the daunting statistic which set the stage at the beginning of the inaugural Horse Racing Women's Summit at Santa Anita Thursday, a two-day event designed to nurture the abilities of women already involved in the sport and engender new talent to follow after the sport's current batch of female leaders.

And what was the over-arching takeaway? Greater mutual support among the sport's female participants, and the fostering of a culture of mentorship among male leaders towards their female peers.

In a panel titled “Thriving Through Challenges,” Dora Delgado, executive vice president and chief racing officer of the Breeders' Cup, described the business that she entered in 1983 as a lot of Khaki and blue blazer-clad men sitting around the boardroom table resistant to change.

“And that hasn't changed much since,” said Delgado, adding that, despite her credentials—she was anointed last year on the Sports Business Journal's prestigious “game changer” list, for example—she still feels the need to prove her qualifications “over and over and over again.”

Part of the problem is nepotism, she and others said.

The Kentucky Blueblood aristocracy, it “runs deep,” Delgado said. “If you're not born to it, it takes a bit of work to get accepted.” That cycle needs to be disrupted, she added.

“'This guy's really great—I play golf with him. He's got a son who needs a job. Where can we fit him in?'” said Delgado, rhetorically replaying what she described as familiar conversations across racetrack boardrooms.

Dora's response? “Nowhere.”

Christa Marrillia, vice president and chief marketing officer at Keeneland, detailed the female dress code for employees at the track when she first joined in 2003, which excluded open-toed shoes and pants.

While those restrictions have since lifted, changing the work-place culture for women in the sport has proven tougher, she said.

“I would sleep with my cell-phone by my pillow,” explained Marrillia, describing herself as a workaholic who never took breaks—a common refrain among the presenters, all of whom described the challenges of maintaining a healthy work-home life balance, especially those with families and children.

What changed Marrillia's attitude, she said, was witnessing her behavior rub off on her team, some of them young mothers. “I was like, 'wow, I'm creating a bad thing here.'”

She has since altered the culture for her employees at Keeneland, she said, for the better. “I do feel like we're at a tipping point,” she added, about the role of women in the game.

“I'm still really good at my job, but I'm not going to miss the birthday parties. I'm going to sleep,” she said. “I'm not going to answer an email at two in the morning.”

Dionne Benson, chief veterinary officer at 1/ST RACING, discussed the importance of male higher-ups in the sport championing their female peers.

Benson told the story of how, when on a work call, two men proceeded to disparage her, mistakenly thinking they were muted.

“Then Aidan found out about it and called all their bosses,” she said, referring to Aidan Butler, 1/ST RACING's chief operating officer.

There's also the honey-pot approach.

“What my boss finds interesting, I find fascinating,” joked Rikki Tanenbaum, 1/ST GAMING's newly minted chief commercial officer and president.

The afternoon was broken into two panels, the latter of which turned their gaze inwards towards matters of integrity—or what Del Mar Thoroughbred Club board member, Marie Moretti, called “intentional integrity.”

A key area of focus appeared to be the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA), designed to provide parity in the metering out of offenses, among many other things.

“You will know what you're going to get,” said Moretti, advocating the Act's uniform rules, if not only to improve public perception of the sport. “Perception is reality in the modern world.”

Optics was a common theme. “I couldn't even get my horsey girlfriends to the track—they thought it was a cruel sport,” said Bo Derek, saying that when she took over as a California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) commissioner, the industry was in the state of flux due to problems associated with drug misuse, whip abuse and the ill-fated switch to synthetic tracks.

“I'm really encouraged. The fanbase is up, the gaming is good,” said Derek, about the current state of California's racing industry.

“I don't think it's something we can be quiet about any more,” said Shannon Kelly, executive director of the Jockey Club's Safety Net Foundation, zeroing in on the public's growing awareness towards the vast human involvement in the sport.

“What other industry has to have a charity for its workers in times of need?” Kelly said, highlighting the number of food distribution centers that feed the nation's backstretches.

All panelists advocated for financial self-sustainability to fund each aspect of the industry, from racehorse aftercare to the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund.

“If you're entering into the sport,” said Kelly, “you should be aware of the costs that are associated with `putting on the show.'”

The earlier panel looked outwards, each of the four speakers tasked with marketing and growing the sport to a world not forged upon racing's gristmill.

“We've all got one goal but we're all coming at it from different ways,” said Jodie Vella Gregory, director of the office of innovation at 1/ST RACING.

“Everyone in here has an idea,” she added. “We should all be taking to one another.”

Taking aim at horse racing's natural impulse to quickly bin new ideas if they fail to immediately take off, she extolled the virtues of perseverance, pointing to the evolution of the Pegasus World Cup—what originated a big-pot attraction first and foremost, but which has transformed into something of a place-holder on the social calendar.

That, and “we need to expand outside the bounds of our community,” Vella Gregory said.

Running with that theme, Lindsay Schanzer, senior producer at NBC Sports, warned of another of racing's bad habits: Leaning into its more insular, arcane traits, sometimes at the expense of new potential fans.

That's why NBC Sports has focused on the story-telling aspects of its race-day coverage, said Schanzer, pointing to its recent fond embrace of things like the jockey cam.

“We really want to put the people on the horses' backs as best we can,” said Schanzer, before making a plug. “If you ever have stories that we don't know of, please reach out to us.”

The other two panelists discussed the role of newer ventures, like FanDuel, as a means of funneling new blood towards racing.

“It's never been that way before—it's never been that easy,” said Shona Rotondo, head of marketing at My Racehorse US, about the accessibility of the racehorse ownership program, with its quick online sign-up process. “We want to sell everyone on the emotion of the game.”

Given the summit's remit, it seems only fitting the event's inaugural leadership award went to a long-time industry mainstay, Jane Goldstein.

Said Amy Zimmerman, when introducing the award, “She found an opening into the sport she loved through the publicity offices of several racetracks. She was always the first one done with her work. It wasn't that she was super quick but, you see, women weren't allowed in the press box after 12. Yes, that's also true. During racing, the press box was exclusive to men.

“After almost four decades,” Zimmerman said, “I'm still often asked the ridiculous question: `what's it like being a woman in racing?' When I was hired, I never thought about it, because Jane Goldstein was the one who hired me. Jane was the one who answered that question. The one who waged that battle to open the door. And then she held it open with class, so all of us could walk through it.”

Goldstein received a standing ovation.

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Santa Anita Park Completes Safest Winter-Spring Season On Record

Santa Anita Park concluded the six-month 2021-22 Winter-Spring season on June 19th as the safest track in North America among those with a comparable volume of racing and training. The record is highlighted by a 62.5% improvement over the previous year from Dec. 26, 2021, through closing day June 19, 2022, with three racing fatalities from over 4,800 starters. The main dirt track did not have a single musculoskeletal racing fatality during the 26-week period. The overall racing and training figures mark a 74% improvement since the spring of 2019 when historic reforms were instituted by 1/ST Racing, the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB), and industry stakeholders. Santa Anita Park is also home to one of the largest training facilities in the country, operating nearly year-round with over 375,000 training sessions per year.

“These results highlight the efforts of the entire racing community to put the safety of the horse above all else,” said Nate Newby, SVP and General Manager of Santa Anita Park.  “The diligence and dedication of the owners, trainers, jockeys, veterinarians and the hardworking men and women who care for the horses each day are truly revolutionizing the sport.  We are especially indebted to our Santa Anita Park track crew, led by veteran Dennis Moore, whose tireless efforts have been instrumental in this success story. None of the protocols, however, work without our horseplayers who have backed this transformation, and we are grateful for their continued support.”

The reforms, which were begun at Santa Anita and subsequently adopted by the CHRB, make up the backbone of the new national standards which will be put in place by the Horse Racing Safety and Integrity Act that goes into effect on July 1.

“Santa Anita Park Veterinarians performed over 3,700 examinations prior to horses working at Santa Anita since Dec. 1,” said Dionne Benson, Chief Veterinary Officer for 1/ST Racing. “We appreciate that this involves extra effort for our stakeholders, but this heightened scrutiny has allowed for additional opportunities to work with everyone for the best interest of the horse.”

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