equine herpesvirus | Horse Racing Free Tips

Laurel Park: Claudio Gonzalez Making Up For Lost Time With Perfect 5-For-5 Start

After going 33 days between starters at Laurel Park, trainer Claudio Gonzalez is more than making up for lost time.

A 16-time meet champion in Maryland who has led the state in overall wins each of the past four years, Gonzalez has won with each of his first five starters at Laurel's spring meet, delayed to an April 8 opening by an equine herpesvirus (EHV-1) quarantine.

Gonzalez's barn was among those unable to enter races, and restricted to training hours separate from the rest of the horse population.

“It's not a good feeling when we can't train them the way we want. We only had 30 minutes to train all the horses, but it was the same way for everybody in quarantine,” Gonzalez said. “I believe the horses are saying thank you now. They got a little rest and they're feeling really good.”

Leading trainer with 28 wins despite missing the final two weekends of Laurel's 2021 winter meet, which had its last three programs canceled due to the quarantine, Gonzalez won with both his starters Friday – Robert D. Bone's Bear Force Won ($4.60) in Race 1 and Magic Stable's Baptize the Boy ($4.80) in Race 4.

Gonzalez won with all three of his starters on Thursday's opening day program – Marden ($5.20) and Queen of Tomorrow ($5.60), both owned by Bone, and Chetram Bhigroog's Cause to Dream ($6.60). Prior to that, Gonzalez hadn't run a horse at Laurel since winning with two of three starters March 7.

“I feel good, especially for the owners because the owners have bills to pay no matter what, and they lose money when they don't run,” he said. “Now they're happy.”

Gonzalez went 1-for-28 running at Parx in the interim. He has won 10 of the last 11 meets at Laurel dating back to the 2018, sweeping all four Maryland meets in 2020 including the Preakness Meet at Pimlico Race Course.

Gonzalez nominated 10 horses to Laurel's April 24 Spring Stakes Spectacular program, including stakes winners Miss Leslie for the $125,000 Weber City Miss), Eastern Bay and Lebda for the $100,000 Frank Y. Whiteley, Landing Zone for the $100,000 Dahlia and Completed Pass for the $100,000 King T. Leatherbury, the latter two on turf.

“The horses are ready to go and we were lucky to have the right races go, too. If we get the right races and the horses are ready, it's good. Everything happens for the better,” Gonzalez said. “If we continue like this, we're going to have some good weekends.”

Notes: Jockey Sheldon Russell and his wife, trainer Brittany Russell, teamed up for a pair of popular maiden wins Friday with 4-year-old filly Memphis Mafia ($2.80) in Race 3 and 4-year-old gelding Ratify ($3) in Race 7 … Russell completed a riding triple aboard Shane's Jewel ($4) for trainer Jamie Ness in Race 8 … Jockey Kevin Gomez notched back-to-back wins with Baptize the Boy ($4.80) in Race 4 and John the Bear ($24) in Race 5 … There will be carryovers of $5,396.14 in the 20-cent Rainbow 6 and $922.76 in the $1 Super Hi-5 for Saturday's nine-race card (12:40 p.m. post). Multiple tickets with all six winners Friday returned $1,002.92.

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Laurel Park Adds Seven Thursday Programs To Make Up For Lost Dates

The Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association and Maryland Jockey Club have agreed to add racing days over the next several months to make up for multiple cancellations in the winter and early spring because of weather conditions and equine herpesvirus (EHV-1) restrictions.

MJC earlier announced that the Spring Stakes Spectacular program originally scheduled for April 17 at Laurel Park has been moved to the following Saturday, April 24. Extra races listed for Thursday, April 15, will move to Saturday, April 17, and racing will not be held April 15. The program slated for Friday, April 16, has been moved to Monday, April 19. So racing will be held April 17-19 instead of April 15-18.

Only horses stabled at Laurel Park are eligible to enter and race through the end of the EHV-1 quarantine April 17. The quarantine at Pimlico Race Course is scheduled to end April 12.

Live racing had been scheduled for three days a week—Friday through Sunday—at Laurel Park in June and July. Seven Thursday programs have been added on June 3, 10, 17 and 24; and July 1, 8 and 15. The summer meet concludes with racing on a Friday-through-Sunday schedule until Aug. 22.

“We're trying to make up days for the world's trifecta—Mother Nature, COVID-19 and the EHV-1 quarantine,” MJC President Sal Sinatra said. “We'll make up the opportunities as the races fill. And hopefully, we'll be back to normal operations with our turf course in June after the Pimlico meet.

The Laurel Park spring meet ends Sunday, May 2. Pimlico will race 15 days from May 5-31. The Laurel summer meet begins Thursday, June 3.

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Laurel Park Live Racing Schedule Adjusted for April 17-19

As an equine herpesvirus (EHV-1) quarantine nears its end, the Maryland Jockey Club has modified the upcoming live racing schedule at Laurel Park.

Next week, Laurel Park will race Saturday through Monday, April 17-19, before returning to the usual Thursday through Sunday schedule for the 16-day spring meet that ends May 2.

For horsemen, races in the current condition book for Thursday, April 15 will be used Saturday, April 17, while races in the book for Friday, April 16 will be used Monday, April 19.

Positive cases of the equine herpesvirus caused MJC to cancel the final three days of Laurel's winter meet, March 26-28, and delay the start of the spring meet from April 1 to Thursday.

Saturday, April 24 is Laurel's Spring Stakes Spectacular program featuring seven stakes worth $750,000 in purses led by the $125,000 Federico Tesio for 3-year-olds and $125,000 Weber City Miss for 3-year-old fillies.

The 1 1/8-mile Tesio is a 'Win and In' qualifier for Triple Crown-nominated horses to the 146th Preakness Stakes (G1) May 15 while Weber City Miss is a 'Win and In' race for the $250,000 Black-Eyed Susan (G2) May 14, both at Pimlico.

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Kentucky State Veterinarian Weighing Options For In-State And Maryland EHV-1 Horses

From E.S. Rusty Ford, equine operations consultant at the office of the state veterinarian, Kentucky Department of Agriculture

Following are updates to the equine herpesvirus (EHV-1) incident at Blackwood Training Center in Woodford County, Kentucky.

We are also taking this opportunity to share with you our understanding of the latest developments at Laurel and Pimlico in Maryland.

Blackwood Training Center Woodford County Kentucky:

Results of testing on the samples (Nasal Swabs and Whole Blood EDTA) collected from each horse stabled in Barn B on Wednesday, March 31 have been reported negative for detection of EHV1 DNA by PCR testing. In addition to the testing that has been completed, the horses have been monitored daily and our findings support that it has been greater than 14 days since any horse in Barn B was last potentially exposed to a clinical case. Meeting the criteria above provided us the confidence needed to release the group of horses in barn B from restriction and allowed them to resume their normal training and racing activities beginning on Friday, April 2nd.

Barn A at Blackwood: Daily monitoring of the horses stabled in Barn A continues. There have been no additional fevers or other symptoms in the group, and we have tentatively scheduled the horses in Barn A to be sampled (nasal swabs and whole blood) and tested by PCR later next week.

Maryland:

Laurel/Pimlico

Published reports and conversations with animal health officials in MD, suggest the situation at Laurel continues to evolve as additional positive samples have been collected from non-clinical as well as a few horses exhibiting clinical signs. The Maryland state veterinarian and the Stronach Group have decided the plan moving forward is to only sample and test symptomatic horses in the affected barns. Currently, their criteria for quarantine release will be 21 days of no clinical signs reported. This plan relies strictly on grooms/trainers/vets to report fever or other evidence of illness, which in our opinion may result in lack of detection of circulating virus. This protocol is in direct contrast to the testing protocols we have developed in consultation with infectious disease experts; and which I feel has aided our ability to maintain racing schedules/calendars with minimal disruption and inconvenience to the majority of horsemen.

In light of the current information available to us, we are in the process of developing strategies to mitigate what would be considered an elevated risk to our populations here in Kentucky should Maryland release the imposed restrictions without diagnostically demonstrating the horses and environment are free of evidence of virus circulating.

The probability is that horses which have recently been (date to be determined) at Laurel or Pimlico, will require Kentucky's office of state veterinarian approval prior to entering Kentucky. These horses will likely be restricted and require veterinary examination and testing before being allowed to enter a Kentucky racetrack or sanctioned facility. This protocol has worked well in the past when we've had to address disease events in other states where horses were released from restrictions without testing.

I will be providing and distributing a general summary update late next week when results from the planned testing at Blackwood becomes available.

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