Churchill Downs has placed a barn on its backstretch under quarantine, as first reported by the Daily Racing Form, after a horse showed potential symptoms of equine herpesvirus on Tuesday.
According to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, the filly is reported to have had a recurring fever and was referred from Churchill Downs to a Lexington area equine hospital on Nov. 28 after displaying hind limb ataxia. The filly has since tested positive for EHV.
Thirteen other horses were stabled in the same barn as the affected horse, all of whom had samples collected for PCR testing on Wednesday morning.. None of the other horses on the backstretch will be allowed to interact with the 13 in the quarantined barn.
The Maryland Jockey Club sent a text alert to horsemen on Tuesday that no horses from Churchill Downs will be allowed to ship in to Laurel Park or Pimlico Race Course “until further notice.”
Woodbine also announced it would restrict ship-ins from any horse that had been at Churchill in the past two weeks.
One of the most common causes of lameness in horses is osteoarthritis (OA). Horse owners across the country spend countless hours and paychecks to try to supply effective pain management tools to their horses in hopes of providing comfort and prolonged happiness — whether in the pasture or in the show pen.
For years, the only known joint injection protocol with numerous studies to support claims for horses of all career check points (training, being competitive, retired) was hyaluronic acid. The hyaluronic acid (HA) injection is an intra-articular injection in the joint. It is popular with high-level competition horses, and is acceptable to use for racehorses.
“However, there is currently a model rule saying you cannot perform intra-articular injections in the 14 days prior to a race,” says Dr. Mary Scollay, chief of science for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority's (HISA) Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program. “Not all of the states have adopted that, but it is the ARCI Model Rule.”
However, because of the expense of HA injections for purchase, there has been a push for animal science companies to produce a similar effect. Enter the nondegradable synthetic gel, polyacrylamide hydrogel.
Two of the more common types of injectable synthetic hydrogels are being marketed in the United States as Arthramid Vet and Noltrex Vet.
Noltrex Vet is a 4% polyacrylamide hydrogel (pAAm) that is being marketed to target “a root cause of joint pain by physically reducing friction.” According to the Noltrex Vet website, the manufacturer claims that the gel coats the cartilage of the horse's joint with a protective lubricating layer while reducing friction. The gel also forms a protective/lubricating layer on articulating surfaces and helps to restore and maintain a horse's healthy join function.
Arthramid Vet is a 2.5% cross-linked pAAm gel. According to Contura Vet's website, the manufacturer claims that the gel adheres to the synovial lining through the gel's ability to exchange water molecules. Then, the gel becomes integrated into the synovial lining over a period of 14 days. It is labeled for the management of all stages of non-infectious osteoarthritis and degenerative joint disease in horses. The difference with Arthramid Vet, according to the website, is that the injection becomes fully integrated into surrounding tissues, deeming it long-lasting.
Numerous studies have been shown that pAAm hydrogel has a lubricating ability that lowers the friction of cartilage, thus helping to promote a more pain-free movement for healthy and degraded cartilage. In a study presented at the 2019 American Association for Equine Practitioners Convention by Dr. Scott McClure, Dipl. ACVS and owner of Midwest Equine Surgery & Sports Medicine in Boone, Iowa. Dr. McClure and his team of researchers evaluated the pAAm hydrogel's effects on the tissue structure in six healthy horses' fetlock joints. They also tested the gel on 28 horses with naturally-occurring osteoarthritis.
The first six horses were found to have no adverse effects following the administration of the pAAm hydrogel and the hydrogel was still visible on the joint capsule lining when viewed at 28 and 56 days post-injection.
Of the 28 horses with osteoarthritis, the injection showed positive numbers, including:
23 horses showed improvement based on study criteria at Day 45 post-injection;
21 horses still met the criteria for improvement at Day 90;
None of the 28 horses with injections had any adverse effects
The injection has been shown to be long lasting and can be given to horses anywhere from once every six months to once every 24 months.
Sounds like a miracle injection to keep horses comfortable throughout their lives, right?
Some veterinarians, such as Scollay, are still hesitant about the claims of pAAm and its manufacturers as it pertains to use in racehorses.
“I have no qualms in using it on my retired gelding who has some arthritis and I just want him to be comfortable and enjoy whatever time he has left,” said Scollay.
But, when it comes to the use of pAAm in the performance horse versus the racehorse, Scollay has reservations about its safety when used in the racing environment.
“The thing that's troubling to me, is when you read the promotional materials that are typically promoted towards owners or laypersons, it reads 'Indicated for use when pain is isolated to a joint' so if the pain is coming from a joint, this is appropriate to use,” she explained. “There are lots of things that can cause joint pain. Some of them are associated or identified as precursors to potentially catastrophic injuries. Lameness is a symptom. The underlying cause of the lameness should be identified in order to develop an appropriate treatment plan. Failure to do so puts horses at unnecessary risk.”
“I'm concerned that the safety work that has been done to date is not that sufficiently relevant to the racehorse. I'm not saying it's unsafe, I'm saying we don't know that it is safe for the population of the horses we steward. More information is needed.”
As of the publishing date of this article, HISA regulations say that if pAAm is used in the horse's joint, the horse cannot race for 180 days. There will be a discussion on the topic of the use of joint injections at the December meeting of the International Federation of Horse Racing Authorities Advisory Council on Prohibited Substances.
When Prince of New York arrived at Morning Line Equestrian in Paris, Ky., in the spring of 2021, his new owners needed to come up with a barn name.
Chris and Celia Bennings' first idea was “Pony,” the first letter of each word in the horse's name.
“We thought that would be cute, but then of course my wife looks at me and was like, 'A 40-year-old with a big stallion called Pony, that'll go over well,'” Chris said with the deadpan delivery of a standup comic.
So, the Bennings instead decided to call him “The Stallion” around the barn.
The fact that a generic moniker like “The Stallion” is specific enough to identify Prince of New York is notable. He is the only stallion out of the approximately 50 horses at Morning Line Equestrian. He was one of just two stallions among the 281 horses competing at the 2022 Retired Racehorse Project Thoroughbred Makeover at the Kentucky Horse Park.
Prince of New York stood out, and people took notice. The 6-year-old dark bay New York-bred finished first out of 79 in Show Jumpers and second out of 74 in Show Hunters. He won the People's Choice Award.
I'm writing my next “Horowitz on OTTBs” for @paulickreport about Prince of New York. He was one of just two stallions in a field of 281 for the 2022 @RRP_TBMakeover. The Stallion, as he's called by Chris Bennings, was first in Show Jumpers (seen here) and second in Show Hunters. pic.twitter.com/Ojanq7sakq
Prince of New York represents a specialized path taken by owners of Thoroughbred stallions. While not entirely unique—the second stallion at the 2022 Thoroughbred Makeover was Comanche Chief, who was 12th in Barrel Racing—it's quite rare.
“Having a stallion made me be a little more ambitious about making sure my training and my preparation was ready,” Chris Bennings said.
Three weeks after the Thoroughbred Makeover and 13 miles away from the Kentucky Horse Park at Keeneland in Lexington was the Breeders' Cup world championships, where Flightline followed the more common and sought-after plan for Thoroughbred stallions: Win a career-defining race and then retire to stud to reap large stud fees for their owners. (See “Commentary: The Problem With … The Race To The Breeding Shed”
Flightline is now one of many stallions at farms in Kentucky whose purpose is to pass on their genetics to future generations and continue the Thoroughbred breed's legacy in racing. Calling Flightline “The Stallion” at Lane's End would be silly at a farm with 22 stallions standing at stud.
The stallions that are not able to go from racing to breeding, either because the demand for breeding to them does not exist or they're not viable for breeding, are usually gelded so that they become better suited to a new career as sport or pleasure horses.
Prince of New York was a situation somewhere in the middle. He raced eight times from his 2-year-old year in 2018 to his 4-year-old year in 2020. He won twice. But, victories in a maiden claiming race at Aqueduct and in a $7,500 claiming race at Finger Lakes don't exactly get a horse to Lane's End or a full book of broodmares showing up to the farm.
Still, the Bennings' main purpose for acquiring Prince of New York was for breeding, with the idea that he could pass on his genetics for sporthorse purposes based on his conformation and movement.
Prince of New York finished first of 79 Show Jumper competitors at the Thoroughbred Makeover
The Thoroughbred breed is experiencing a revival off the track, thanks to events like the Thoroughbred Makeover. Certain breeding lines are showing an aptitude for certain equestrian sports, such as Kitten's Joy for dressage and Fusaichi Pegasus for eventing. However, those stallions were marketed exclusively for racing purposes, and the high cost of breeding to them would have been a hindrance to sporthorse breeders.
“As we've done the Makeover, my wife and I have paid attention to breeding, and there really isn't a whole lot, maybe a handful, of Thoroughbred stallions for sporthorse breeding,” Bennings said. “So, we always kept our eye out for a nice stallion to bring along.”
“There needs to be more Thoroughbred stallions,” Bennings said. “When we looked at our own herd, we have really nice Warmblood mares, but our biggest fear is breeding to another big Warmblood, and they get too heavy.”
Bennings felt that Prince of New York would need to prove himself as a sporthorse to be marketable as a sporthorse stallion. The original plan was for “The Stallion” to compete at the 2021 Thoroughbred Makeover, but Bennings opted to take more time so that Prince of New York would be better prepared. (While horses are only eligible to compete in the Thoroughbred Makeover once, the Retired Racehorse Project rules allow horses to be turned out for a year, so long as their full-time training for their sporthorse discipline doesn't begin before December during the year prior to their competing in the Makeover.)
“When he got here, I played with him for a couple of days, but we decided that was going to be way too quick of a turnover for him,” Bennings said. “So, we turned him out and bred him and then started up January the next year for this year.”
The extra time to settle into his new environment off the track and to foster a relationship with Bennings paid dividends for Prince of New York.
“The movement and the jump, he was very easy to train,” Bennings said. “He took to the jumping immediately. It was very natural for him.”
Showing a stallion can be more nuanced than showing a gelding or a mare.
“I really think it's a mentality you have to be in,” Bennings said. “How do I take him places where he mentally is going to think he's the only horse there?”
Bennings would lunge or warm up Prince of New York with as much isolation as was possible in the busy show environment at the Kentucky Horse Park, sometimes at unorthodox hours.
“He's got to be thinking about me, and I've got to be thinking about him,” he said. “The distraction is I'm looking for every other horse to keep him away from, and he's looking at every other horse to get close to.”
Prince of New York
After making the Finale in Show Jumpers and Show Hunters, Bennings opted to hand walk “The Stallion” in the TCA Covered Arena the day before to acclimate him to the busy show ring rather than ride him. When it came time to compete for the top honors at the largest Thoroughbred-only horse show in the world, Prince of New York was all business.
“There's just a different quality, they definitely have a different shine to them and a presence, and I saw him in the ring familiarization and just really a gorgeous horse handling the environment really well,” announcer Ashley Horowitz commented on the Thoroughbred Makeover Finale livestream.
Bennings said that one of the Field Hunter judges inquired afterward about breeding to Prince of New York. Should Jenna Denver decide to breed her chestnut mare She's a Bold One, who was first in Eventing and the winner of the Carolyn Karlson Trophy as the overall Thoroughbred Makeover champion for 2022, crossing her with Prince of New York may very well produce the ultimate Thoroughbred sporthorse.
Prince of New York's first foal was born this year to a Warmblood mare to be a sporthorse prospect. Bennings has four Warmblood sporthorse mares and one Thoroughbred race mare currently in foal to Prince of New York. The Warmblood mares were bred through artificial insemination, while the Thoroughbred mare was bred through live cover so that the foal will be eligible to race under Jockey Club rules.
“The Stallion” has had time off while breeding before returning to training, but Bennings said that going forward he would like to continue to have Prince of New York in training while breeding him, provided the horse is mentally up for it.
“Finding a good enough horse, period, and then to find one that's intact that has a brain, that's what took us so long to find him,” he said.
Now that they've found him, Prince of New York could become a king of breeding top-class Thoroughbred sporthorses and bring a new dimension to the Thoroughbred breeding industry in the United States.
Just like Thoroughbreds are showing their versatility competing in a variety of sports on and off the racetrack, horses like Prince of New York have the potential to showcase that versatility in the breeding shed as well.
Announcing horse races inspired Jonathan Horowitz to become an advocate for off-track Thoroughbreds, as well as to learn to event on OTTBs and to expand his announcing of and writing about equine sports to horse shows around the United States. He also announces a variety of sports around the Denver-metro area, where he and his wife, Ashley, run the Super G Sporthorses eventing barn. He can be reached on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube at @jjhorowitz.
The most popular sport in the world, soccer, could have something to offer equestrian sport: feedback on footing.
Many soccer fields and stadiums utilize a tool that looks similar to a lawnmower for objective feedback in five areas: shock absorption, hardness, energy resistance, rotational resistance, and vertical displacement.
Soccer professionals seek to assess these areas in an effort to address injury prevention, ball performance, and promotion of surface uniformity. The HiPSter machine also may be of use to help assess the quality of riding surfaces, said Dr. Menke Steenbergen of Ipos Technology in the Netherlands. The information the machine offers may lead to better equine performance and fewer musculoskeletal injuries, reports The Horse.
Dr. Steenbergen and her research team used the HiPSter on three arenas made of sand or synthetic fiber. One arena was heavily used, while the second was rarely used and rarely maintained. The third arena's usage and maintenance was in between the two.
The scientists measured each arena in seven to 13 locations and compared the results to standard footing measurements. They discovered that the lawnmower-like machine gave reliable results about shock absorption, hardness, vertical displacement, and energy resistance.
Shock absorption could vary by 39 percent from one arena to the other and within the same arena, even on the newest and most-expensive footing. The HiPSter did have issues determining rotational resistance on arena footings as it is designed for grass soccer fields, the scientists noted.
The team concluded that the machine could effectively evaluate riding arenas with minor modifications. As the machine is completely automatic, there is no chance for human interference. The ability to regularly measure riding surfaces using an automatic machine could improve surface quality and enhance equine safety.
