KHRC Update on Churchill’s Horse Fatalities

On the heels of both the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) and Churchill Downs updating horsemen and the public Thursday on actions taken regarding the 12 equine deaths since Apr. 27 at the Louisville oval, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) issued an update of their own Friday afternoon outlining investigative actions already taken and planned to be taken in the future. The statement, which originated from the Commonwealth of Kentucky Public Protection Cabinet, appears in its entirety below:

“The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) takes the safety of all racing participants very seriously. The increased number of horse fatalities in Kentucky is concerning and the KHRC's veteran team continues to explore every known variable that could possibly be contributing factors in these deaths.

“Working daily with Churchill Downs and the Horseracing Safety Authority (HISA), the KHRC has taken the following actions:

  • Opened an investigation into every horse fatality
  • Interviewed jockeys, trainers, owners, grooms and backside workers regarding safety concerns and observations
  • Increased pre-race scrutiny on every horse for racing soundness
  • Participated in roundtable discussions with Churchill Downs' veterinary team, track superintendents and track executives looking for any recurring factor in the incidents.
  • Reached out to California Horse Racing Board Executive Director Scott Chaney for best practices in the event of a rash of equine fatalities
  • Participated in the HISA emergency summit and shared details of daily workouts, investigative interviews
  • Created an executive-level safety steward position to coordinate daily track safety measures. Job details will be posted at KHRC.ky.gov when available.

“Out of an abundance of caution and effective June 7, 2023, Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund purses will be limited to first through fifth place finishers.

“All investigations opened after Apr. 29, 2023 are ongoing, but so far have not identified a common variable between these recent fatalities. The KHRC has not received necropsy reports from the University of Kentucky for any horse fatality after May 2, 2023. Once necropsies are completed and blood analysis is returned, the KHRC veterinary team takes a comprehensive look at all known factors that contributed to that death and compiles those results in a mortality review. As these reviews are completed, they will be made public and posted to the KHRC website at https://khrc.ky.gov/new_docs.aspx?cat=30&menuid=30

“Each completed mortality review will be shared with HISA for further review and recommendations.

“On June 2, 2022, the KHRC entered a voluntary agreement with HISA that grants them authority to oversee racetrack safety. On Mar. 21, 2023, KHRC entered a voluntary agreement with HISA's Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Program.

“With these agreements in effect, the KHRC has authority to suspend a license for any violation that threatens the integrity of Kentucky horse racing or the KHRC's ability to protect the racing public except where HISA has preempted state regulations in the areas of 1) track safety, and 2) anti-doping and medication control (“ADMC”).  If a track had violations related to either of these areas, HISA would have jurisdiction.”

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Churchill Downs Unveils New Safety Initiatives

In the wake of 12 horses suffering fatal injuries since Apr. 27 and after a Thursday meeting with horsemen, Churchill Downs announced new safety initiatives that will go into effect immediately.

They are:

  • A pause of track-based incentives such as trainer start bonuses and purse pay-out allocations to every race finisher through last place. Purse pay-outs will now be limited to the top five finishers. Churchill Downs officials will engage in ongoing discussions with horsemen to determine ways to reallocate these funds to best serve industry needs. With record-high purses, Churchill has been able to allocate purse money to all starters. For example, the 12th-place finisher in last Saturday's $225,000 Keertana S., Sinfiltre (Uncle Mo) earned $2,070 despite losing by 22 1/4 lengths.
  • Restricting the number of starts per horse to four starts during a rolling eight-week period.
  • Ineligibility standards for poor performance. Horses that are beaten by more than 12 lengths in five consecutive starts will be ineligible to race at Churchill Downs until approved by the Equine Medical Director to return.

Of the 12 horses who have died thus far at the meet, the new rules would have been applicable to only one, Kimberley Dream (Colonel John). The 5-year-old mare was beaten by 12 lengths or more in five straight races before breaking down in a race on May 27, the most recent fatality to occur at the track. During that stretch, she was beaten an average of 26 lengths per race.

The Thursday morning meeting also included a presentation by California-based equine surgeon Dr. Ryan Carpenter. He provided educational information and tools to trainers and practicing veterinarians about advanced interventions that can be considered for certain equine injuries.

“The attending veterinarians and trainers at Churchill Downs are incredibly capable and knowledgeable,” said Dr. Will Farmer, Equine Medical Director for Churchill Downs Incorporated, in a statement released by the track. “We feel a duty to provide the latest information on surgical interventions from an expert who experienced the challenges in California a few years ago that we currently face today. Any decision must be made first and foremost with the long-term well-being of the horse in mind. It is imperative that all available, educated and informed options can be efficiently, confidently and thoroughly relayed to the owners.”

Trainer Dale Romans was among those who attended the meeting, which was held at the backstretch recreation center. The Romans-trained Rio Moon (Bal a Bali {Brz}) is among the horses who have died, suffering a fatal injury in a May 14 race.

“It was packed. Standing room only,” he said. “It was the first horsemen's meeting I've ever been to that had that kind of turnout. Everyone is concerned.”

While Romans said he wasn't sure what kind of impact the new rules will have, he said he is confident that track management will do everything in its power to get the situation under control.

“People should just be glad that Churchill is on top of it,” he said. “They will do everything they can to keep every horse healthy and safe. This could help. I'm sure Churchill is studying this to try to find the common denominator. They must have found something where they think these rules will help. I trust in Churchill. This is a safe racetrack. It has always has been one of the safest tracks in the world. At Churchill, horses come first and horse racing comes second. The trainers here may be Churchill loyalists, but that's ok because they've earned our loyalty.”

Romans said a slew of breakdowns in a short period of time is always a possibility.

“In my opinion, this is a statistical anomaly,” he said. “We have a rash of breakdowns right now and then we might go for a very long time without one.”

Trainer Kenny McPeek did not attend the meeting, but touched based afterward with his assistant, who did. Like Romans, he wasn't ready to point any fingers.

“The unfortunate part of our sport is that horses do get injured,” he said. “Their efforts are genuine and they are trying to find some solutions. But I don't think it's ever going to be a zero game. Every time I breeze a horse or run a horse, I want them to come back good. You're always keeping your fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong. But it does sometimes. I don't want to jinx myself but my horses have done great over this track this spring. We've had a large group of horses at Churchill and we haven't had any issues. I think the track has been fantastic all spring.”

One issue not addressed by Churchill was the ratio between claiming prices and purses. Some in the industry believe that horsemen have an incentive to run unsound horses in claiming races when the purses are lucrative. At Churchill, $20,000 claimers run for a purse of $52,000 or 2.6 times the claiming price. The Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) had proposed a rule that the purse of a race could not be more than 1.6 times the claiming price. But that rule was rescinded in 2021 after HISA received negative feedback.

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Federal Bill To Replace HISA Reportedly In Pipeline

A federal bill aimed at replacing the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) with a regulatory system modeled around an interstate compact is reportedly in the pipeline.

The president of the United States Trotting Association (USTA), Russell Williams, disclosed the news about the pending legislation Mar. 21 during a special meeting of the Pennsylvania Horse Racing Commission (PHRC).

Williams addressed the PHRC Tuesday just prior to the board voting in favor of entering into three nine-month agreements with the HISA Authority that pertain to the Racetrack Safety Program, the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU), and the Laboratory Services Agreement.

Williams was urging the board to consider future implications prior to taking its vote, and one of the issues he brought up was the looming potential for a replacement regulatory structure.

“It's not just a possibility out there. It should be happening in the near future,” Williams said.

“There is legislation about to be introduced in Congress [and] the primary sponsor of this legislation has been talking with us,” Williams said. He did not disclose who that senator or congressman is.

“We provided him with a draft,” Williams continued. “The draft came from the [North American Association of] Racetrack Veterinarians, the HBPA, and the USTA. And it's already been through legislative services, [which has] put it in Congressional format, and as soon as the primary sponsor has his team put together, the bill will be introduced.

“This bill is a state-administered program,” Williams said. “So states would form an interstate compact. They would use state authorities, state experience and state funding, and save millions of dollars over the HISA structure.

“The legislation is health- and safety-focused,” Williams said. “It provides all of the same benefits to the racing industry that HISA does. It is science-based, and this is one of the problems we've had historically with the approach of HISA; it's in the HISA statute, the arbitrary nature of the regulatory approaches in words and statute, the Lasix ban.”

Williams said that the new legislation would be underpinned by “state administration, a science basis for making policy decisions, and a funding model that can be afforded by the racing industry.”

TDN could not independently confirm the involvement of the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (NHBPA) with the pending legislation. A phone message left for the NHBPA's chief executive officer, Eric Hamelback, did not yield a return call prior to deadline for this story.

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Racetrack Surfaces: Where HISA’s Rubber Meets the Road

The closer the clock ticks down to Nov. 4, when Turf Paradise's latest 130-day meet is scheduled to launch, the louder will the questions resound about the facility's historically checkered approach to equine welfare and safety.

Near the midway point during last year's Turf Paradise meet, its equine fatality rate was more than 2.8 deaths per 1,000 starts. This compares to the national equine fatality rate of 1.39 per 1,000 starts last year.

Between Oct. 10, 2021, and May 7, 2022, 11 horses were fatally injured during morning training at Turf Paradise and 18 were fatally injured during racing, with another 13 lost to other circumstances.

Anyone with even a glancing understanding of catastrophic injuries knows the complex nature of causality, with the term “multifactorial” much bandied about. One of these important factors, however, is the condition of the racetrack surface–an issue that has bedeviled Turf Paradise in recent years.

To prepare for the upcoming meet–as well as for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA), the racetrack safety portion of which went into effect July 1–Turf Paradise has hired a new track superintendent and has joined forces with the Arizona Horsemen's Benevolent & Protective Association (AZHBPA) to hire noted racetrack expert Steven Wood to oversee these operations.

In many ways, tracks like Turf Paradise–those with more to do to meet HISA's baseline racetrack surface standards–provide something of an inflection point for the federal law, the rubber now meeting the road.

How long do tracks like Turf Paradise have to get up to speed, for example? What are some possible implications for non-compliance?

In the long term, how soon before the data collection components of these federal rules generate the kinds of answers needed to further racetrack surface safety in the U.S.? “Patience,” extolled racetrack surface expert Mick Peterson in answer to the latter. “It's not going to happen overnight.”

HISA Requirements

The racetrack maintenance component of HISA–summarised here–sets out two main areas of compliance.

Before the start of each meet, tracks are required to perform a set of testing protocols for all dirt, synthetic and turf surfaces. These include the examination of dirt or synthetic surface bases either visually or by using ground penetrating radar, as well as measuring the geometry of turf tracks.

Then on an ongoing basis during the meet, HISA requires a set of daily measurements to be made at all quarter-mile markers at distances of five feet and 15 feet from the inside rail. This includes moisture content and, for dirt and synthetic tracks specifically, cushion depth.

Sarah Andrew

Track superintendents are also responsible for keeping a log of what kinds of daily maintenance they perform on the track surfaces and the relevant equipment used, along with the amounts of water put on the tracks.

Though key regional differences mean no two tracks work their surfaces exactly alike, “our end goal is to have every racing surface feel the same to the horses when they run on it,” said Ann McGovern, HISA director of racetrack safety, mirroring comments made about the work done in recent years at Del Mar and Santa Anita to render their main tracks physical twins–work widely regarded as instrumental in making these two tracks among the safest in the country.

That's the goal. To get there, the rollout it is, like much of HISA's broader mandate, piecemeal.

In short, the reporting component of the law is already very much at play, with track superintendents required to keep daily logs either written into notebooks or submitted digitally.

Where HISA currently affords wriggle room is to the typically smaller, less-resourced tracks that might not have all the necessary equipment to meet new demands.

Has HISA identified a specific date by which all tracks need to be up to speed? “We don't have an end date for that,” responded McGovern, adding that “we plan on giving extra help to tracks that need it, and extra guidance.”

Thistledown Racino in Ohio is one of those tracks playing catch up.

“Implementing everything has taken some time, but we're going the right way,” said long-time track superintendent John Banno. “We might be further behind some tracks, but we might be further along than some others.”

As mandated under HISA, the track has established a safety committee that Banno attends with the safety director and director of racing, along with representatives from the horsemen, jockeys and stewards.

“We cover a lot of bases,” Banno said, about these monthly meetings. “It's mostly about keeping the lines of communication open.”

Ryan Thompson

Complying with another new mandate, Banno maintains a written notebook of numbers, details and wrinkles from his workday.

“If I'm putting down 100,000 gallons of water,” Banno said, of the details recorded. “If we use harrows for the first few races and we then switch to floats. If it rains–things like that.”

But as someone “more comfortable with dirt and mud than documentation,” ducks and water would hardly be analogized in the way Banno's taken to the task. “I'm hoping it gets a little more streamlined,” he admitted. Efficiencies can also be made elsewhere.

“I have a wish list every year,” said Banno, pointing out that his crew is working with equipment that is, in some cases, more than 40 years old.

“I'm sure many smaller racetracks have to deal with that, too,” said Banno, pointing out that new equipment is both pricey–new floats or harrows can run up to $25,000 each–and fairly limited in supply.

“As far as I can tell, there's only two vendors that sell this equipment, and one of them doesn't really supply too many things anymore,” he said.

The current Thistledown meet ends Oct. 14 before kick-starting once again next spring.

With more than six months between now and then, Banno has ample time on his hands to prepare for HISA's pre-meet testing requirements. Many other meets are scheduled to launch in the interim.

This is where Peterson, who founded the non-profit Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory, is expected to step in.

“It doesn't tell you anything”

HISA is in the final stages of reaching an agreement with Peterson for his organization to oversee these pre-meet stipulations.

“Our agreement is to ensure that HISA gets what information it needs when we go to the racetracks to do the testing,” said Peterson. Not that he anticipates the same degree of involvement at all tracks.

Many of the larger, more prestigious tracks already meet and often exceed the baseline track demands under HISA. Take moisture content readings–what should be measured daily–with Fair Grounds “a good example,” said Peterson.

“I can tell you what the moisture content was measured at 24 points [around the track] in 2010 at Fair Grounds, every day of the race meet,” he explained.

But not all U.S. track superintendents currently use the requisite tool to measure moisture content–a funkily called time domain reflectometry device. Those that don't typically gauge it the old-fashioned way, grabbing a clump of dirt and squeezing it with their hand. Or through the feel of the equipment on the track.

The good news is that a time domain reflectometry device will set the buyer back around $1,400–hardly a bank-breaker. Nor do these instruments require a PhD in engineering.

“Incredibly simple,” Peterson said, about the device's ease of use. “You just stick it in, press the button.”

Sarah Andrew

For run-ragged superintendents at under-resourced tracks, arguably the biggest headache under HISA's new regime has proven the time and discipline involved in keeping daily testing and maintenance logs.

Some of the tracks already affiliated with the Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory use the organization's online portal to record information, though Peterson admits it can still prove laborious, the database something of a Bronze Age relic of the early digital era.

That old software, however, is undergoing a digital facelift. “The new version with The Jockey Club is going to be a lot more user-friendly,” said Peterson. That revamped software will undergo beta-testing at the Keeneland fall meet.

Which leads to the ultimate aim of what Peterson describes as the wholesale collection of “standard data taken in a consistent fashion out of a lot of tracks”: the ability to refine the information to better determine what track surface maintenance practices improve equine safety–and those that don't.

“It doesn't tell you anything,” said Peterson, dismissive of the Clegg hammer–a device measuring hardness and compaction that is still widely used around U.S. racetracks.

Then there's the issue of sealed tracks. In California, for example, horses are not permitted to train on such a surface. According to Peterson, that reticence is probably unfounded.

The “largest study to date from the Equine Injury Database [EID]” found “no significant difference when comparing off dirt versus regular dirt track for risk factors,” Peterson said.

The question then becomes: How soon can we expect the data collected under HISA to bear fruit?

“It's going to take a lot of data,” said Peterson, comparing it to the evolution of the EID.

“The first four or five years, I remember it wasn't clear that the EID was going to contribute any meaningful understanding of catastrophic injuries,” he said. “It took a lot of data, even with full participation.”

Given the steadily shifting sands of public opinion toward horse racing, there's a chance some tracks with dicey safety records might not have that four- or five-year leeway.

“This surface is not right,” warned trainer Kevin Eikleberry during an Arizona racing commission meeting before the 2021-22 Turf Paradise meet when even the commission's head veterinarian bemoaned a lack of thorough and consistent surface maintenance standards.

With a change of crucial track personnel at the Arizona facility in the interim, however, expectations are noticeably higher one year on.

Coady

“HISA would absolutely react”

“We've had to make sure the banking is how we want it,” explained Wood, before ticking off a long grocery list of other preparations already conducted at the track, including removing “a lot” of material from the existing surface, and adding tons of new sand and bark, the latter for cushioning.

“All these things should help,” said Wood, before adding that “you're still going to have to have the other guys, the vets and such, do their job” to meaningfully shift the needle.

According to George Lopez, the newly minted track superintendent at Turf Paradise–himself a former protégé of the Wood academy of track management–the facility has also splashed out on new equipment.

This includes a new grader–used to redistribute surface materials–and two new water trucks. “We also have two good tractors now,” said Lopez, who describes his new job as a “challenge” to relish.

“I'm very confident and I'm very sure we're going to have a really good, safe meet this time,” he said.

But what if the meet resumes this November and safety expectations fall short once more?

Stressing the “multifactorial” nature of equine injury, McGovern said that in such an instance, the new federal authority would “immediately” get involved, though stopped short of outlining a clear set of potential actions.

“Getting involved may mean talking to management, talking to the track superintendent, sending Mick [Peterson] to look at the track surface, looking at necropsies, looking at training methods,” McGovern said. “HISA would absolutely react to any track that had numbers as significant as we have seen at Turf Paradise last year.”

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