As regulators scramble to stop the current spate of equine fatalities at Churchill Downs' spring meet, the racetrack announced a series of new policies that would be in place regarding racing eligibility, effective immediately.
According to a June 1 press release from Churchill, those measures include:
· 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 is engaged in ongoing discussions with horsemen to determine ways to reallocate these funds to best serve industry needs;
· 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.
So far, Churchill's spring meet has seen 12 equine fatalities – nine musculoskeletal injuries, two sudden deaths, and one paddock accident.
According to analysis by the Paulick Report, the latter two policy changes regarding poor performance would only have prevented one of the 12 horses from starting in their last race. Kimberley Dream, a 7-year-old mare who broke down in the first race at Churchill on May 27, had finished more than 12 lengths from the leader in five consecutive starts. Code of Kings, who died after flipping in the paddock, came close — four of his previous starts had him more than 12 lengths from the winner, but the fifth one did not.
None of the 12 runners would have been excluded on the basis of no more than four starts in eight weeks.
At the time of this writing, none of the horses listed on Equibase as scratches from Thursday night's Churchill card had a reason for scratch available, but none appeared to be ineligible based on the new regulations.
During an NTRA teleconference to discuss the upcoming Belmont Stakes, industry players were asked about their feelings on the new safety regulations.
“I did a lot of listening, I'm gonna leave it at that,” said trainer Brad Cox. “I think Churchill is trying to turn over every card, dot every i, cross every t, just a lot of stuff happening since the meet began. Hopefully we're kind of coming to the end of this. It's tough to comment about. I've been telling people, I have enough on my plate with the horses I'm training, we've had no injuries, knock on wood.”
Jockey John Velazquez, who is on the Racetrack Safety Standing Committee for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, expressed hope that advanced imaging may eventually be a solution to safety issues. The Authority has launched its own investigation into the Churchill fatality spike, including complete veterinary reviews of the horses that died and bringing in a track surfaces expert to give an independent analysis of the surface.
“Giving horses time to recuperate and to be in the best shape to run races, that's the way it should be. We have to concentrate on safety,” said Velazquez. “I think there's not many other things that we can do (for safety improvements). I do think we should have better testing of horses prior to races, taking scintigraphy, MRIs before the races, I think we can insure that the horses which aren't showing anything to the naked eye, we can catch those things anyway and we can prevent those injuries.”
—Additional reporting by Chelsea Hackbarth
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