Haydon Named Deputy Executive Director of The Jockey Club

Jamie Haydon, president of Grayson Jockey Club Research Foundation, has been named deputy executive director of The Jockey Club, President and Chief Operating Officer of The Jockey Club James L. Gagliano announced Wednesday.

In this added role, Haydon, who will be responsible for industry engagement, will report to The Jockey Club Executive Vice President and Executive Director Matt Iuliano. Haydon will engage with the industry on initiatives of the company and foster collaboration among industry organizations on health, safety, and promotion of the Thoroughbred. Among his field duties, he will seek feedback from customers of The Jockey Club's commercial subsidiaries regarding products and services.

“Because of his work with our industry initiatives and as president of Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation, Jamie has been engaged with people from every facet of the sport,” said Gagliano. “He will be an excellent advocate for The Jockey Club and for racing as a whole, and we look forward to furthering The Jockey Club's engagement with other stakeholders through his efforts.”

Haydon, who assumed his position as president of Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation in 2019, joined the organization in April 2018. He joined The Jockey Club in 2008 as the manager of Industry Initiatives after stints with Breeders' Cup, Ascot Racecourse, National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Four Star Sales, and Kentucky Horse Racing Authority.

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Study Confirms Hair Use For Long-Term Detection Of Bisphosphonates

A new study, called for in 2019 by the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation, was published on the use of hair as a matrix for the long-term detection of bisphosphonates in horses, the organization said in a release Thursday.

“Over the past few years, bisphosphonate use has become a concern with regard to the welfare of Thoroughbred racehorses,” said Jamie Haydon, president of Grayson. “We are very thankful for the generous support by Vinnie and Teresa Viola's St. Elias Stables and their ability to recognize the importance of this research in promoting equine safety and welfare.”

The new study found that hair testing can be used to consistently detect bisphosphonates for up to six months after administration.

“Bisphosphonates are labeled for horses 4 years and older to manage navicular symptoms,” said Dr. Johnny Smith, A. Gary Lavin Research Chair of Grayson. “Unfortunately, people were using them in young horses, which is detrimental because bisphosphonates inhibit bone resorption, can stay in a horse's system for years, and can have long-term effects on bone.”

Previously published studies, including one conducted by the same group and funded under the same special call, demonstrated that in some cases bisphosphonates can be detected in blood and urine for extended periods of time, but detection using these matrices can be unpredictable and less consistent.

“Our study from 2020 showed that clodronate and tiludronate reside in the bone for extended periods,” said the study's principal investigator, Dr. Heather K. Knych, who is with the K.L. Maddy Equine Analytical Chemistry Lab's Pharmacology section and the Department of Molecular Biosciences, at the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis. “This can lead to lasting pharmacologic effects and increase the risks of injury to racehorses. Being able to detect bisphosphonates long term in hair benefits the athletes and increases the integrity of the sport.”

Bisphosphonates are considered a banned substance for covered horses under the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority's Anti-Doping and Medication Control program. A covered horse that tests positive is subject to lifetime ineligibility.

Click here to read the study.

 

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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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Welfare and Safety Summit To Return To Keeneland

The 10th Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit will take place June 22, 2022, in the Keeneland Sales Pavilion, the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation announced Feb. 28. The previous summit, held in June 2020, was a virtual webinar due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The event will be free and open to the public as well as being streamed online. The agenda will include a review of the Thoroughbred industry's implementation of safety recommendations developed at the first summit in 2006 as well as a presentation by Dr. Tim Parkin on the latest statistics from the Equine Injury Database. The full program and list of speakers will be announced at a later date.

“This year marks 16 years since the first Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit, and our 10th edition of this event will showcase the progress our industry has made during that time as well as areas of safety and welfare that continue to require our attention,” said Jamie Haydon, president of Grayson. “Keeneland has been a committed partner with us from the beginning, and we are thankful for their hospitality as well as their recognition of the importance of the summit to the Thoroughbred industry.”

Added Keeneland President and Chief Executive Officer Shannon Arvin: “Keeneland is a firm believer in promoting the safety and welfare of our human and equine athletes. The accomplishments of the previous summits are a testament to the value of this gathering, and Keeneland is proud to support it.”

Among the major accomplishments that have evolved from the previous nine summits are the Equine Injury Database; the Jockey Injury Database; the Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory; a uniform trainer test and study guide; the racing surfaces white paper and publication of educational bulletins for track maintenance; the publication of stallion durability statistics; the Hoof: Inside and Out DVD, available in English and Spanish; protocols for horses working off of the veterinarian's list; recommended regulations that void the claim of horses suffering injuries during a race; and inclement weather protocols.

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