The unnamed, unraced filly, who is trained by Jorge Abreu, was sent to Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital on Sunday, July 11 after developing a fever. She was subsequently tested for a number of potential ailments, and a positive test for EHV-1 was returned on Thursday afternoon. The filly began treatment immediately, and is improving under the care of Dr. Luis Castro, DVM.

Overseen by Dr. Anthony Verderosa, the director of NYRA's veterinary department, in consultation with the NYSGC, the Barn 86 quarantine is effective immediately with standard precautions and biosecurity measures now in place.

During the initial quarantine period, these horses will not be permitted to enter races or train among the general horse population. Afebrile/asymptomatic horses stabled in Barn 86 will have isolated training hours at the Oklahoma Training Track following the close of training for the general horse population at 10 a.m.

As of Thursday evening, no additional horses in the quarantined barn have exhibited symptoms.

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For the past several weeks, horses in barns that had been under quarantine because of equine herpesvirus (EHV-1) have trained on the track at Laurel after regular training hours. Laurel is now considered one quarantine facility, as is Pimlico Race Course, and as of March 28 there were no positive EHV-1 cases at either facility.

Horses that are positive are housed at the former Bowie Training Center or at private farms. Each of the three barns being used at Bowie is considered a separate quarantine facility given their spacing on the property.

Training hours at Laurel are as follows: 5:30 to 10 a.m. on race days and 5:30 to 10:30 a.m. on dark days, with renovation breaks from 7-7:30 a.m. and 9-9:30 a.m.

The current 21-day quarantine at Laurel and Pimlico calls for only symptomatic horses or those with a temperature of 101.5 degrees or higher to be tested. If there are no more EHV-1 cases, the Pimlico quarantine will end April 12, and at Laurel, the date is April 18, according to Odian.

Live racing at Laurel was canceled March 27-29 and also April 1-3. No racing was scheduled for April 4, Easter Sunday. As of now, racing is scheduled to resume Thursday, April 8, subject to there not being additional EHV-1 cases. Only horses stabled at Laurel will be permitted to race until the Pimlico quarantine expires.

Horsemen are encouraged to continue taking horses' temperatures and to report any above 101.5 degrees to Dr. Libby Daniel, the Maryland Racing Commission Equine Medical Director, or Dr. Heidi Thomas, MJC Senior Veterinarian.

All backstretch employees are urged to continue various disinfection practices for barns and equipment and to refrain from interaction with other barns at MJC facilities. Veterinary officials said it's important to open up barns as much as possible to allow fresh air to circulate. It not only helps the horses but helps reduce the chances of spread of the virus in barns. It is also important to limit horse-to-horse contact and to keep stress on horses at a minimum.

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Veterinarians with The Stronach Group and state health officials described a shift in procedures for testing and quarantine as the situation has continued to evolve from the first EHV-1 positive at Laurel in early March. There are two schools of thought on the best testing procedures in EHV-1 outbreaks: one that suggests testing all potentially exposed horses and releasing them after two weeks if they test negative and show no symptoms. The other suggests a 21 to 28-day quarantine for exposed horses, and testing only of symptomatic horses. Initially, officials took the 14-day approach but quickly found a high number of positives from asymptomatic horses.

Dr. Dionne Benson, chief veterinary officer for 1/ST RACING, said Friday that some 30 percent of the population is expected to be shedding the virus at any given time while having no illness. Most veterinarians agree that horses are commonly exposed to equine herpesvirus but for whatever reason, many never actually get sick from it. Horses who are sick and shedding the virus through their nasal secretions are releasing much greater amounts of the virus and therefore represent a danger to others that asymptomatic carriers likely don't.

In an effort to avoid quarantining the track over asymptomatic positive horses, veterinarians have now swapped their strategy to the 21-day plan, and say they need cooperation from horsemen to make this as efficient as possible. Trainers are asked to take horses' temperatures frequently and report any horse with a temperature of 101.5 or higher, or any horse exhibiting neurological symptoms. Those horses will be isolated immediately and tested.

In several cases, Benson said symptomatic horses have been removed from their home barns and tested negative at first sampling, then been positive on a second test taken a few days later. This means those horses were not shedding the virus at the beginning of their illness when they were in their barns, but began to do so in isolation as their illnesses progressed. In those cases, officials are not shutting down the barns those horses came from because they believe those horses weren't yet contagious when they last saw their stablemates.

Currently, confirmed positives are being sent to Bowie, where they can spread out across barns in different areas of the facility. “Suspect horses,” or those with symptoms, are being moved to designated isolation barns at their home track (either Laurel or Pimlico) to wait out test results. If feverish horses return two negative tests, they can return to their home barn because their fevers are likely caused by something other than EHV-1. EHV-1 is highly contagious and can be transmitted not just from horse-to-horse contact, but by people and equipment that travel between horses.

Training schedules have been disrupted at Laurel as officials try to keep horses from potentially-contaminated barns apart from the rest of the population, although Benson said it's extremely unlikely a horse could catch EHV-1 by jogging by an infected horse on the track. Horses that have been potentially exposed but are not ill are allowed to train because veterinarians believe the stress of three weeks of stall rest could make them more susceptible to developing symptoms.

If there are no more positives at Laurel, the quarantine could be released April 17. If the pending test at Pimlico is negative, its quarantine will be released 21 days from the first positive, which would be April 12. If the current pending test is positive, Pimlico will also be released April 17.

Veterinary officials said that contact tracing has been performed on all horses that left the Laurel grounds before the gates were closed at the start of March with the first detected EHV-1 case. No other cases have been reported in connection with Laurel's outbreak.

The Mid-Atlantic circuit is known for lots of horse travel up and down the East Coast, and owners and trainers on Friday's teleconference indicated they're losing significant revenue by being forced to remain at Laurel. Even if they were permitted to leave, Benson pointed out most other racetracks would not permit a horse to come in from a Maryland track right now. It is possible for trainers to get special permission from state veterinarian Dr. Mike Odian to send horses to a local farm, but they will be required to quarantine for 21 days there.

The EHV-1 strain in Laurel's outbreak is the “wild” type, which means it's not the same version of the virus making headlines in Europe right now, or the same version that's been found in Florida. While there is a vaccination for equine herpesvirus, it is not approved as a means of preventing the neurological form of the illness.

As everyone waits out the quarantine, there is one thing horsemen can do to help the situation, besides following all biosecurity protocols: open the barns. EHV-1 is thought to thrive in closed environments and creates infections when there's a lot of it in a concentrated amount of air space. Getting circulation through the barn will dissipate the virus and make it less likely a horse can get sick.

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The additional 24 horses in Barn B of the index EHV-1 affected premises were sampled on Friday due to potential exposure of indirect transmission (riders) having occurred prior to confirmation of the index case. Two horses from this group had a trace amount of EHV-1 DNA detected in the nasal swab and were removed from the barn and segregated on Saturday.

To date, 18 horses in index Barn A and 22 horses in Barn B have had one set of negative test (nasal swab and/or blood) . The last febrile horse was removed from Barn A and placed in isolation on March 10, 2021. There have been no clinical horses in Barn B since the start of the outbreak.

Five of the nine horses in the isolation barn have tested positive with the last fever reported on Friday March 12, 2021. All horses in isolation are being monitored by the attending veterinarian.

A second round of testing is being planned for the horses in barns A, B and Isolation.

The management and staff of the premises continue to implement enhanced biosecurity and health monitoring protocols including multiple daily temperature recordings. Additionally, these enhanced measures have been implemented at other sanctioned training facilities in Kentucky.

Staff from the Office of the State Veterinarian continue to closely monitor the situation.

Appropriate biosecurity and other safeguards are fully implemented at Turfway Park.

Updates will continue to be provided as information is learned.

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Horsemen are asked to take horses' temperatures twice daily and monitor them for signs of the disease. Equine herpesvirus is a highly transmissible respiratory illness which can spread through nasal discharge or aerosol droplets. It can also be spread passively on surfaces such as human hands, shared grooming tools, and tack. There are several strains of equine herpesvirus, with the most common being EHV-1 and EHV-4. EHV-1 presents as a mild respiratory illness with fever, lethargy, and nasal discharge, but some strains of the virus can cause severe neurological disease and death. EHV-4 can also present with similar respiratory symptoms but can also cause abortion in pregnant mares as well as severe neurologic disease.

During equine herpesvirus outbreaks, horsemen and staff are typically encouraged to minimize traffic of people and horses between barns and to practice good biosecurity protocols to avoid transmission of the disease.

Laurel officials are awaiting instructions from state animal health officials on movement of horses and Tuesday morning's announcement stated that all horses at Laurel are required to stay on the grounds until further guidance is provided. Horses shipping into Laurel will also be required to stay there until more guidance is issued. Horses at Pimlico are not subject to those restrictions at this time.

A Zoom meeting has been scheduled by the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association for 2:30 p.m. Tuesday to allow the Maryland Office of the State Veterinarian to field questions from horsemen about the outbreak.

It remains unclear how many horses have tested positive, whether there are positive cases in all three quarantined barns, or whether the neurological strain of equine herpesvirus is involved. This story will be updated as those details are confirmed.

EHV-1 outbreaks have been in the headlines in the equestrian world in recent weeks. A large outbreak in Europe has frozen international competitions there, and an outbreak connected to the World Equestrian Center in Ocala, Fla., saw its third suspected case over the weekend after two horses tested positive. All three horses exhibited high fevers, one nine days after leaving the Center.

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According to a video conference call held Tuesday afternoon, one horse developed neurologic symptoms over the weekend and was quickly removed to the Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg, Va., where the horse is responding well to treatment. Test results later indicated the horse was positive for the “wild type” strain of EHV-1.

There are two closely related strains of EHV-1 that may be indicated in testing, and they're commonly called the “wild type” and the “neuropathogenic type.” Both can cause neurological symptoms and are handled basically the same way by animal health officials.

Read more about EHV-1 in this Paulick Report explainer from 2016.

Contact tracing on the horse later revealed it had potential exposures in the now-quarantined barns. Horses from those barns were not permitted to train Tuesday, but track management is working on a plan to allow them to train Wednesday morning. Those horses will not be permitted to gate school, and Maryland's equine welfare and medical director Dr. Libby Daniel indicated they would likely not be permitted to race.

The initial quarantine is expected to last 14 days, but a new positive will restart the quarantine length for the barn in which the new case is found. The 14-day period started March 8.

Dr. Michael Odian, Maryland state veterinarian, and Steve Koch, senior vice president of racing operations at The Stronach Group, emphasized that diligence by all personnel will be key to minimizing disease spread and getting the quarantine orders lifted as scheduled.

“The trick is we have to be super diligent throughout that 14 days, make sure there is no cross contamination or exposures that cause further barns to be quarantined,” said Koch. “All horses need to be asymptomatic during that period.”

Horses can continue to enter Laurel during this time, but will not be permitted to leave. The same rules will apply at Pimlico, except that horses who leave Pimlico to run at Laurel may return to Pimlico. The two facilities are being treated as one property for the purposes of the outbreak.

Horsemen are asked to take horses' temperatures twice daily and monitor them for signs of the disease. Equine herpesvirus is a highly transmissible respiratory illness which can spread through nasal discharge or aerosol droplets. It can also be spread passively on surfaces such as human hands, shared grooming tools, and tack.

Horses that are symptomatic (those that have a fever of 102 degrees or higher or those showing neurological signs) should be tested as soon as possible. Crews have cleaned out Barn 29 on the Laurel backstretch and horsemen are encouraged to remove horses from their shedrows at the first sign of potential illness and take them to Barn 29 to reduce the amount of time the virus could be passed to horses in neighboring stalls. Horses should be tested for the virus only if they show symptoms, and will be tested twice — once when they become symptomatic, and once 72 hours later. The goal of the second test is to catch horses who may show symptoms before actually shedding enough of the virus to be picked up on the first test.

Staff working in quarantine barns should not go from quarantined areas to non-quarantined areas. They should save their work in quarantine barns for the end of the day, and leave the facility after working in those barns. Staff are encouraged to keep a change of shoes to be used only in quarantined barns, or to use pull-on rubber galoshes over existing boots. Ideally, staff should also wear coveralls over their clothes when working in a quarantined area. All equipment should be wiped down with disinfectant at the end of each work day to prevent disease transmission.

EHV-1 outbreaks have been in the headlines in the equestrian world in recent weeks. A large outbreak in Europe has frozen international competitions there, and an outbreak connected to the World Equestrian Center in Ocala, Fla., saw its third suspected case over the weekend after two horses tested positive. All three horses exhibited high fevers, one nine days after leaving the Center. Odian confirmed the strain of the virus at Laurel is not the same as the strain in the European outbreak, and said he did not believe it was the same strain connected with recent positives in Florida or one in Pennsylvania.

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