HISA Issues Churchill Downs Update

After 12 horses suffered fatal injuries at Churchill Downs in the last five weeks, prompting the Louisville track to announce new safety initiatives Thursday, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) issued an update on the situation. The HISA statement appears below in its entirety:

Over the past several days, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) has undertaken multiple measures to better understand the circumstances surrounding the recent spate of equine fatalities at Churchill Downs in hopes of working with the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) and Churchill Downs to mitigate additional risk to the horses and riders competing at Churchill Downs moving forward.

On Tuesday, May 30, HISA convened a Veterinary Summit with its counterparts at Churchill Downs and the KHRC to thoroughly review all veterinary information available and conduct additional analyses. Those discussions continued through yesterday with ongoing engagement between the veterinary teams. Specifically, the Summit included robust discussion of three different points of intervention with regard to racing injuries: 1) injury management, 2) preventing at-risk horses from racing via veterinary scrutiny, and 3) preventing at-risk horses from entering.

The dialogue was productive and conclusions from the Summit have been shared directly with key stakeholders to inform next steps. While no obvious or specific pattern emerged, HISA welcomes Churchill Downs' efforts announced earlier today to minimize risk of equine fatalities and is implementing the following additional measures:

  1. Effective with Saturday's entries, HISA's Director of Equine Safety and Welfare will conduct an additional layer of post-entry screening. HISA's rule 2142 (Assessment of Racing Soundness) requires post-entry screenings of previous pre-Race inspection findings of entered Horses to identify Horses that may be at increased risk for injury. The review includes past performances, lay-ups (more than 60 days without a timed Workout or Race), last 30 days medical history, previous injury and lameness diagnostics, intraarticular corticosteroid injections, previous surgery and other individual Horse risk factors.
  2. HISA has directed the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) to collect blood and hair samples for all fatalities involving Covered Horses. The results from such collections will be used to facilitate investigations into the cause of such fatalities. The data collected by HIWU in connection with Covered Horse fatalities will also be used to track relevant statistics and trends in connection with fatalities.
  3. HISA has appointed Dr. Alina Vale, an equine forensics specialist, to conduct an additional thorough review of all necropsies performed on Covered Horses. Dr. Vale has conducted several postmortem reviews as an official veterinarian for the California Horse Racing Board, including participating in the review following a spate of equine fatalities at Santa Anita in 2019.

Additionally, Dennis Moore began his analysis of Churchill Downs' racing and training surfaces yesterday. That review is ongoing; Moore's conclusions will be shared publicly once his review is complete.

HISA continues to urgently seek additional answers to more clearly identify the causes of these recent fatalities as well as tangible interventions to prevent them in the future. All options remain on the table, and HISA will continue to vigilantly monitor events at Churchill Downs moving forward.

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MJC Issues New Statement on Laurel, Racing will Resume

The Maryland Jockey Club (MJC), which cancelled racing this weekend after two fatalities at Laurel Park Thursday, issued a new statement late Saturday regarding the status of the Laurel surface.

The statement appears in full below:

The Maryland Jockey Club has cancelled its Thursday, Apr. 27 racing program at Laurel Park due to insufficient entries. The racing office will be open and taking entries Sunday for the Friday, Apr. 28 program.

We acknowledge the recent statements in the press regarding the safety of our racing surface. However, we want to emphasize that 1/ST Racing and the Maryland Jockey Club prioritize safety above all else, and continually engage in proactive analysis of our racing and training surfaces. To this end, we have engaged the services of Dennis Moore, a renowned industry expert, who has been conducting routine testing of the Laurel Park racing surface for the past three days. Dennis, along with independent engineering experts, have performed a comprehensive battery of tests during this time, to ensure the safety of our racing surface.

Particle size distribution via the following methods:

  • Laser diffraction
  • Sieve and hydrometer
  • Orono Biomechanical Surface Test (ASTM Standard F3400)
  • Peak Vertical Load
  • Peak Fore-Aft Load
  • Peak Vertical Deacceleration
  • Ground Penetrating Radar
  • Percentage surface crossfall
  • Bulk Density
  • X-ray diffraction
  • Base inspection

The results of these tests were all within industry norms. Based on these tests and their professional knowledge, our track experts have advised that there are no issues with the track and that it is safe to race and train.

In addition, Dr. Jennifer Durenberger, Director of Equine Safety and Welfare with HISA, has at our request reviewed Laurel's fatality data and stated, “I've reviewed the data provided to me this morning by the Maryland Racing Commission and find a racing fatality rate at Laurel of approximately 1.3/1,000 starts since January 1st. By comparison, the Equine Injury Database shows a rate of approximately 1.98/1,000 at this same point (through Apr. 21) last year.” As stated the current fatality rate has decreased from last year at the same point.

Even though the track surface is within industry standards certain Horseman have determined not to submit entries for this Thursday's racing card. Hopefully after reviewing the facts live racing will proceed.

We hope that all stakeholders will be able to come to a consensus and adopt the enhanced veterinary and safety protocols that have been implemented with great success in California. MJC has made repeated requests of the horsemen and are still waiting for their approval to be able to move forward with their implementation.

While we all know that catastrophic injuries will not be eliminated completely it is clear from the above that our track is not the issue, and we urge the Commission and the MTHA to take advantage of the proven enhancements to improve horse safety.

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NYRA, StrideSAFE Sensor Technology Study Begins New Stage

Since last summer, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) has trialed on thousands of runners a discreet sensor technology capable of detecting minute changes in a horse's gait at high speed.

Called StrideSAFE, the biometric sensor mechanism slips into the saddle cloth and works like a traffic light signal, providing a green for all-clear, an amber for possible warning (light amber better than dark amber), and a red for possible danger.

The ultimate aim of StrideSAFE–a focus of discussion during the recent Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit–is to detect soundness problems undetectable to the naked eye before they turn potentially catastrophic. Nearly 6,500 races later, the results are in.

Of the 20 horses that suffered fatal musculoskeletal injuries during the period of the trial, 17 of them had received a red rating in a race before suffering a catastrophic breakdown. One of the 20 had received a prior dark amber rating.

Crucially, these red and dark amber ratings were issued in either the race immediately prior to the breakdown or else two or three races back.

Just from the results of this study, therefore, the StrideSAFE technology detected 90% of those horses that suffered a catastrophic injury, sometimes weeks or even months in advance.

“This is obviously a very important group for the trainers to be on top of,” said Dr. David Lambert, founder of StrideSAFE.

Which leads to the next step along the path–a comprehensive program to first identify and then properly manage and diagnose the most at-risk horses.

That's because the 17 horses fatally injured which had received a red rating in prior races were among hundreds of horses red flagged throughout the trial.

While some of these flagged horses are at higher risk of suffering a catastrophic breakdown, others are also more likely to suffer a non-lethal career-ending injury, while some are just slow or ill-disposed to trying, said Lambert. The trick will be to quickly and accurately identify each.

“At this point last year, we were just observing trying to figure out what this all means. Now we know enough to say that a [cautionary] alert means you've got to get the horse looked at,” said Dr. Scott Palmer, equine medical director for the New York State Gaming Commission, about a new trainer email alert system to be unveiled at Saratoga.

“That means we're not just going to look what happens anymore,” Palmer added.

Sarah Andrew

What is StrideSAFE?

This wireless iPhone-shaped device fits snugly into the saddle towel, and eight hundred times a second, it takes an assortment of measurements to capture in minute detail the movement of the horse at high speed.

These measurements include the horse's acceleration and deceleration, the up-and-down concussive movement of the horse, and its medial-lateral motion–what is, in other words, the horse's movement from side to side.

Ultimately, the sensors capture the sorts of high-speed lameness invisible to the naked eye but significant enough to cause major musculoskeletal failures at some point down the line–unless, of course, someone intervenes on the horse's behalf first.

To understand exactly how StrideSAFE identifies almost imperceptible signs of lameness, it helps to break a single stride into three distinct stages.

In the first phase of the gallop, the hindlimbs load and propel the horse forward. In the second, the horse shifts its weight toward the front, its forelimbs acting like shock absorbers. This is followed by the lynchpin of the equation: A period of suspension, a mere fraction of a second, when the horse is entirely airborne.

If that horse is suffering a physical ailment or injury, it cannot adjust its body to compensate when its feet are grounded. It can only do this in midair, rotating its spine and pelvis in preparation for a more comfortable landing.

Imagine a racecar hurtling along at high speed, one of its bolts working loose.

“The horse does all kinds of things in the air, twisting and shaking and moving,” Lambert had previously explained to the TDN.

Which leads to the next important question: How are the red, amber and green ratings calculated?

While some 151 subtle variables are measured within each stride, only 15 are vital to highlight the important differences between individual horses, said Lambert.

Put together, they create a basic standard running from 0 (which is the safest green rating) to greater than eight (which is at the red-hot end of the spectrum) against which all horses can be compared.

At the highest end of that spectrum–a standard deviation greater than eight–the findings were remarkable. Horses awarded this rating in a prior race were more than 50% likely to suffer a fatal injury in a subsequent race or breeze.

More broadly, of the 6,458 individual runs in the NYRA study, 74.5% were rated green, 6.6% were rated light amber, 5.5% were rated dark amber and 13.4% were rated red.

This means that 865 horses were red flagged–a relatively small percentage of the overall runners.

But given how these horses aren't visibly lame–and as such, are tough to diagnose if harboring an underlying physical issue–that's still a lot of horses to sift through in order to identify the few most likely to breakdown.

Sarah Andrew

Lambert developed this technology with Mikael Holmstroem, a Swedish Ph.D. with expertise in equine conformation and locomotion, and Kevin Donohue, Ph.D., professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Kentucky.

And so, Lambert and this team tweaked the algorithm to identify the most at-risk horses and shave off the horses in less immediate danger. In doing so, they zeroed in on 7.4% of the population.

“You find the pattern and then you direct the modeling,” explained Lambert. “And when we did that, we found that 40% improvement and got us down to around 7% without missing any of the [fatally injured horses].”

That's not to say the other red-flagged horses should be ignored, for the study proves how physical deterioration leading up to a catastrophic musculoskeletal injury is typically a long degenerative process over weeks and even months.

This tallies up with the scientific literature on fatal breakdowns which shows just how frequently pre-existing lesions appear at the actual site of the injury.

“This is not a case of them being sound one moment and broken the next. This process is a continuum,” said Lambert. “It's not reliable as a soundness screen,” he added, “it's intended as a breakdown screen.”

Of all the horses that received a green rating during the NYRA study, 77% were racing again in less than 60 days, and 85% were racing again in less than 120 days.

That same study hasn't yet been done for red-flagged horses, says Lambert. But an analysis at the start of the program found that only about 40% of the horses that had a red classification were able to race at all over the next four months after the analyzed race.

This means that once a horse has received a cautionary flag, there needs to be a process in place to funnel it toward the right tool to diagnose the brewing issue.

“The analogy is the check engine light in your car,” said Palmer, agreeing with Lambert. “When that check engine light goes on, what does it mean? It means you've got to get someone to check your car.”

Sarah Andrew

According to Palmer, he and the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association (NYTHA) have recently launched a new system at Saratoga whereby the trainer of a horse given a cautionary flag in a race subsequently receives an email alert, or what is coined an “advisory letter.”

“A [cautionary] alert is not a 'Scarlet Letter'–it does not mean [the horse is] going to die or it's going to get a fracture,” said Palmer, about what such an email means. “The gist of it is, you need to get the horse examined by a veterinarian. That's the bottom line.”

Because StrideSAFE can detect lameness not visible to the naked eye, some of the brewing problems will only be detected using some of the more sensitive diagnostic technologies that are making their way onto the marketplace–but not always.

“Some of them [veterinarians and trainers] are going to be able to find something using flexion tests and usual diagnostic exams, hoof testers,” said Palmer. “These are not the sorts of things that are ordinarily done to a horse every day.”

Nevertheless, Palmer stresses that in the majority of cases, the added veterinary scrutiny will result in a diagnostic thumbs-up, calling it a “not one-size-fits-all” scenario.

“If it's a minor problem, the horse can get some time off, come back and everything's fine,” he said. “In some cases, I fully expect that we'll find nothing, and the horse will be able to go right back and race again.”

Given the work that lies ahead, NYTHA President Joe Appelbaum turned to a baseball analogy, describing the program at first or second innings.

“This is great,” said Appelbaum. “But we need as wide-ranging data set as we can find. We need to share that data and research it hard. We're at the beginning of this game, not the end.”

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Summit for Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Held at Keeneland

Lexington, KY–The 2022 Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit was held Wednesday, June 22 in the Keeneland sales pavilion. The event was presented by The Jockey Club and the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation.

“This was the tenth edition of the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit,” said Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation's President Jamie Haydon following the event. “It's really astounding to think that we couldn't measure how many horses had died on the racetrack when we started this, and now not only are we presenting risk factors nationally, but we heard veterinarians also giving local risk factors. Since the first summit until now, the safety and welfare of our human and equine athletes is the guiding principal and stays the guiding principle. To see over a 30% decrease in fatality rate tells me that we've come together and we've done a lot of work.”

The full video of the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit will be available to watch on the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation's website on Thursday, June 23.

Equine Injury Database Update, 2-Year-Old Fatality Spike in 2020

Dr. Tim Parkin, the Head of Bristol Veterinary School and a member of the Equine Injury Database Scientific Advisory Committee, provided the most recent findings from the Equine Injury Database.

Parkin reported that since the database was launched over a decade ago, annual fatality figures on all racing surfaces have reduced by 30.5% from a high of 2.1 per thousand starts in 2009 to less than 1.5 in 2021. In addition, fatality risk has reduced by 35.6% since 2009 for dirt racing specifically.

Parkin also presented findings on data collected in 2020, when there was a 43% increase in fatal injuries in 2-year-old compared to 2019. With the increase in fatalities, there was a decrease in the overall number of workouts by 2-year-olds due to the impacts of COVID and an altered racing schedule.

“It is interesting to see that while we saw a similar, less pronounced training disruption in older-aged horses, we didn't see an impact on their risk of fatal injuries,” Parkin noted.

Along with the conjecture that the disruption in training may help explain the increase in fatal injuries, Parkin said they found that later in the year as racing resumed to a more normal schedule, 2-year-olds workouts suddenly increased–presumably in an attempt to compensate for a lack of training earlier in the year. He noted that this could have been another contributing factor leading toward the spike in fatalities.

Parkin also discussed recent findings on sudden deaths in racehorses. Since 2009, the database has recorded a 30.6% drop in the risk of musculoskeletal fatal injury, but only an 18% drop in risk of sudden death in the same period.

“A decrease in breakdowns suggests that risk factors have been identified and people are starting to develop interventions for musculoskeletal injuries, but those same risk factors haven't had the same impact on sudden death,” he explained.

While the percentage of overall fatalities due to sudden death was between 5 and 6% in 2009, in several recent years, sudden death has accounted for over 10% of overall fatalities.

“Probably the reason why people are talking more about sudden death, apart from potential high-profile cases, is that because of the reduction in the overall contribution of musculoskeletal injuries to the total number of fatal injuries, the proportion of horses that are dying due to sudden death is rising,” Parkin said.

One potential risk factor for sudden death, according to Parkin, could be the use of Lasix. Their data has shown that use of race-day Lasix increases the risk of fatality by 62%, with a 0.08% incident of sudden death per thousand starts with horses raced without Lasix and a 0.13% incident per thousand starts with horses treated with Lasix.

“The reason why this has not been identified before is purely due to statistical power,” he said. “When you have more than 95% of starts being made on Lasix, it is very difficult to identify a difference between those racing on Lasix and the very few that are not. We now have a sufficient number of years of data related to sudden deaths in the database to enable us to draw these conclusions.”

Dr. Bramlage Examines Advantage of 2-Year-Old Racing

Internationally-recognized equine surgeon Dr. Larry Bramlage of Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital spoke on recent findings relating to the racing and training 2-year-olds. Bramlage is a strong advocate of training horses as juveniles.

“2-year-olds are right at the end of their growth period,” Bramlage explained. “During their growth period, their skeleton is replete with the blood supply and cell population to build bone. It doesn't make any sense to let that totally atrophy until this horse is a 4-year-old, because then you have to build it all back. You want to pick up that support system and convert it from growth to adaptation to training.”

Bramlage evaluated findings examining the most effective methods for building up bone in racehorses. He said that one important aspect of equine physiology is that while bone trains to the level of work, the cardiovascular system trains to the amount of work. He used the example of interval training. While the high-intensity exercise benefits humans, whose limiting factor is the cardiovascular system, he said the same form of training is not as effective for horses.

“Horses can't take that amount of training,” he said. “Their heart and lungs are so good that they just pass the skeleton. The limiting system is always the skeleton in the horse. The best training episode will have a furlong in it that's a little faster than the other furlongs. That shows the horse where they're going to go next week when they breeze.”

Bramlage connected this idea to what may have caused the increased 2-year-olds fatality rate in 2020. During the first half of the year, with few race dates on the horizon, most trainers were only galloping their 2-year-olds. Bramlage said that once racing started up again, trainers may have squeezed breezes together in a tighter time period with a higher intensity.

“What that does is we've now wound up the engine at a much higher level than we've wound up the undercarriage,” he said. “Since the heart, muscle and lungs train to the amount of training, not to the level, if you're just galloping at the same speed, the bone is not making much adaptation. When you ask it to adapt in a short period of time, you compound the problem of the faster breezing schedule with the fact that the heart, lungs and muscle are more mature than the skeleton is. The horses could go faster, but the skeleton wasn't as prepared.”

Regulatory Veterinarians' Perspectives and Looking Toward Racing's Future

In a session focused on equine safety and welfare from a California perspective, Dr. Dionne Benson, the Chief Veterinary Officer of 1/ST Racing, and Equine Medical Center surgeon Dr. Ryan Carpenter discussed the many changes California racing has made since the publicized series of breakdowns at Santa Anita in the spring of 2019.

Medication reform, private veterinary exams, additional race day monitoring and risk assessments prior to races and works were among the major implementation that Benson said has bettered their program and improved the safety and welfare of their horses. Since September of 2019 at Santa Anita, 7,400 unique horses have been examined and over 21,000 pre-work exams have been conducted.

“We just finished a six-month meet at Santa Anita and had three fatalities in racing,” Benson said. “I think it's working. It's certainly a team effort. It's not just the veterinarians. It's the trainers, the owners and the private veterinarians. The one thing that impresses me the most is that we really have changed to a culture of safety out there. Very few people will take that one last shot and enter that horse to get one last race whereas at other tracks, we tend to see that more aggressive attitude. I think there is a conscious effort to put the horse first there.”

Later in the day, a regulatory veterinarian panel was moderated by Dr. Mary Scollay-Ward, the Executive Director and COO of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium. Participants included Prairie Meadows' Dr. Jaclyn Bradley, Churchill Downs Equine Medical Director Dr. Will Farmer, and the Minnesota Racing Commission's Chief Commission Veterinarian Dr. Lynn Hovda.

Scollay asked the three veterinarians a series of prompts centered around how their jobs have evolved since they first started out in the industry.

“One of the unique aspects of my role is that I deal with multiple racing jurisdictions,” Farmer said when asked of the most challenging aspect of his position. “For me to really be in the weeds in each of those jurisdictions, that's why I see the usefulness of HISA to be able to bring some of that together. I have four racing jurisdictions and every one of them is different. As regulatory veterinarians, our biggest challenge is communication.”

Later in the day, KEEP Foundation's Equine Education Coordinator and Amplify Horse Racing President Annise Montplaisir, who served as MC for the summit, moderated a panel on the importance of welfare and safety to youth entering the Thoroughbred industry. Participants discussed why the younger generation places a greater emphasis safety and welfare and shared their thoughts on practical tactics individuals in the industry can use to promote racing to young people.

Also during the summit, a panel was held on the latest updates with equine wearable technology. TDN's Dan Ross recaps the segment here. Other topics throughout the day included jockey wellbeing and fitness, positron emission tomography, an update on racing surfaces testing, and Keeneland and The Thoroughbred Training Center's use of InCompass Solutions.

Biographies of participants, agendas and additional material from the summit can be found here.

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