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Horsemen Hopeful Laurel Park Racing Will Resume Dec. 10

Maryland Jockey Club officials are making adjustments to the dirt racing surface at Laurel Park in hopes of resuming timed workouts as early as Monday, Dec. 6, and returning to live racing on Friday, Dec. 10, according to Timothy Keefe, president of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association.

Racing this weekend at Laurel was cancelled after an alarming number of fatalities – four from racing injuries and three while training – occurred between Nov. 6-28. It was the second time in 2021 that racing at Laurel was halted because of track conditions. The first occurrence was in April after a spike in musculoskeletal injuries, which led to racing being shifted to Pimlico on an emergency basis. Track ownership undertook a multi-million dollar track renovation project that wasn't completed until August, with racing resuming at Laurel in September.

Keefe said he joined Maryland Jockey Club officials and racing surface experts – Dennis Moore from California, Glen Kozak from the New York Racing Racing Association, and former MJC track superintendent John Passero – in inspecting the track's cushion and base. The top layer, or cushion, was peeled off from the rail out approximately 30 feet to facilitate inspection of the base.

One change that's being made, Keefe said, is to add a three-eighths-inch layer called a hard pan or pad between the cushion and limestone base. The pan will be the same material as the cushion but more compacted.

Keefe also said a coarse sand will be mixed into the cushion to help the material bind together and serve more effectively in softening the impact of a horse's hooves hitting the ground.

“They're hoping to lay the cushion back down on Saturday,” Keefe said. Horses have been allowed to exercise on the outer portion of the track, but there have been no breezes or timed workouts. They could resume as early as Monday, Keefe said, and if all goes well he is hopeful racing will resume on Friday.

The Maryland Racing Commission will address the safety of the main track at a regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 7 and are expected to press Maryland Jockey Club officials for a path forward. Mike Rogers, longtime executive with the Stronach Group that owns Laurel Park and Pimlico, has been acting president and general manager since former president Sal Sinatra left the company for a position at Equibase earlier this year.

“Mike has been great, very helpful, as we've addressed this situation,” said Keefe. “And Aidan Butler (Stronach Group's chief operating officer) is focused on this, too.”

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Spike In Fatalities Leads To Examination Of Laurel Park Main Track

What began as something officials called “routine maintenance” that would suspend training at Laurel Park in Laurel, Md., for one day on Nov. 29 has turned into a much more serious situation that could cause racing cancellations this week, according to Thoroughbred Daily News.

Seven horses have died at Laurel since Nov. 6, TDN reports, four as a result of racing injuries and three while training. Several of the fatalities occurred in mid-stretch, where track maintenance crews and consultants have focused their efforts to examine the surface.

The Laurel Park main track was replaced earlier this year, closing in April after not responding satisfactorily to wintertime cushion repairs. Racing was moved on an emergency basis to Pimlico while a multi-million project replaced the cushion, base and substructure of the main track. It reopened for racing in September.

Alan Foreman, who represents the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, told the TDN Friday's live racing program could be in jeopardy. Stronach Group, which owns Laurel and Pimlico, has brought in California-based track consultant Dennis Moore to examine the surface. Horsemen have hired former Maryland Jockey Club track superintendent John Passero to offer his perspective.

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Quest Continues For A Blood Test To Identify Horses At Risk For Injury

A multi-part study by the University of Kentucky to help identify at-risk horses before racing will soon move into its third phase. Gluck Equine Research Center's Dr. Allen Page provided an update on the ongoing research to the Kentucky Equine Drug Research Council last week.

The EDRC was key in funding the first two phases of the study, which has yielded promising results. In the first phase, Page and fellow researcher Dr. David Horohov took blood samples from horses suffering fatal injuries in races and compared them with blood samples from competitors in the same races who did not suffer injuries. The researchers looked for messenger RNA (mRNA) markers that were present in the injured horses but not the uninjured ones. Messenger RNA is responsible for carrying instructions from genes leading to the production of proteins. The number of these instructions, or gene copies, change if the body is increasing or decreasing inflammation somewhere.

Initially, the research identified 21 markers and determined that three of them were present in 88 percent of horses suffering injuries. The tests developed by the research had a 76 percent sensitivity rate, meaning they could practically identify an at-risk horse 76 percent of the time. Page said he wants to get that sensitivity rate higher, as it's important to minimize false positives that would keep healthy horses out of races.

The study's second phase is in progress now and will sequence RNA from the phase one samples, which will help researchers look at a total of 22,000 markers. So far, about 150 markers are promising enough to merit additional research to see if they could be combined with the results from the first phase findings for more accurate and sensitive testing.

Page is now preparing to launch the third phase of the study. In this phase, researchers want to take pre-race blood samples (rather than post-race samples) to validate that the markers could be used effectively as predictors in a practical application. The team will collect blood samples taken at the time of furosemide administration or pre-race TCO2 testing and bank those samples. If a horse is fatally injured in a race, the team will go back and analyze that pre-race sample to see whether it showed the same indicators they've seen in post-race analysis.

In this phase, the relative infrequency of fatal racing breakdowns means the team will have to cast their net wide.

“Obviously, the rate of catastrophic injury is quite low,” said Page. “So if we want to look at pre-race samples, it requires a large number of samples be collected.”

Page projects the team will need to collect 10,000 blood samples, expecting that will result in about 12 or 13 samples related to fatal orthopedic breakdowns (sudden deaths or accidental deaths will not be included). Those samples will then be stored for future research, so the process will not have to be repeated or funded again for subsequent projects.

“We're really happy and encouraged by the results we've got so far and fully anticipate that by using these pre-race samples, we'll be able to validate what we've done and potentially come up with a commercially viable and useful test that we can use in the racing industry to help further decrease the catastrophic injury rates,” said Page.

The sample collection for the project's third phase will take about a year to complete.

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Santa Anita Wraps Autumn Meet With Zero Racing Or Training Fatalities

Santa Anita Park concluded the Autumn meet as the safest racetrack in the nation, without a single racing or training fatality since the horses returned from Del Mar on Sept. 5. During that time period, which includes the 16-day Autumn racing meet which was delayed because of the Bobcat Fire in the neighboring San Gabriel Mountains, 1,106 horses raced over the dirt track and turf course. Additionally, horses recorded over 51,200 training sessions, including 3,771 timed workouts over the main track and 487 over the training track.

The main dirt track has not had a racing fatality in 2020, including the 2019-20 Winter/Spring meet which began in December.

In 2020 there have been five racing fatalities from 5,069 starts, or 0.98 fatalities per 1,000 starters, well below the national average.

In addition to hosting some of the most prestigious races in the nation, Santa Anita is home to the largest training facilities in the country, operating nearly year-round with over 400,000 annual training sessions.

“These results are the efforts of the racing community to put the safety of the horse first at every turn, including additional veterinary regulations and observations, training approvals and analysis of entries,” said Aidan Butler, Chief Operating Officer of 1/ST Racing. “Last year, we set a course to reform the sport of horse racing for the next generation. This year, we are seeing the results of the hard work everyone has put into this effort.

“We especially appreciate the dedication of the owners, trainers, veterinarians and hardworking men and women who care for the horses, of the jockeys who have adapted their riding styles, the California Horse Racing Board which regulates the sport, and veteran trackman Dennis Moore and the entire Santa Anita track crew, who tirelessly work the surface day and night with safety top of mind.

We acknowledged last year that this modernization would likely lead to a short-term impact on Santa Anita's field size, but as these reforms become the national standards, California is ahead of the implementation curve which strengthens the sport in our state. We sincerely thank the bettors who have continued to support our racing product during this transition.

“On behalf of everyone at Santa Anita, we'd also like to let our fans know how much we've missed their passionate voices cheering these horses at The Great Race Place and we look forward to welcoming everyone back just as soon as we are able to do so.”

Live racing will return to the Arcadia oval at Santa Anita Park as tradition dictates on Dec. 26.

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