Santa Anita Park’s Equine Security in Focus at Summit

Within the early a part of 2019, throughout a spike in equine breakdowns at Santa Anita Park and unfavourable publicity that adopted, coach Tim Yakteen, like others, can be requested in regards to the incidents even when he was outdoors the racetrack.

“Going to Starbucks—you simply needed to slide in and slip out. You did not wish to speak about it,” the Southern California-based coach mentioned, noting his self-awareness.

5 years later, California has dramatically diminished its equine fatalities following rule and cultural adjustments, and Yakteen has forgone dodging questions from informal observers to publicly laud the security enhancements. Santa Anita, which not too long ago wrapped up its Hollywood Meet, had solely two musculoskeletal equine fatalities over almost six months of racing from Dec. 26 to June 17. This mirrored a 99.97% security mark from the 6,678 horses that raced.

Santa Anita, which is among the many most used racetracks within the nation for morning coaching, additionally had 5 musculoskeletal fatalities throughout coaching over the primary half of the yr.

“The adjustments that came about had been—and are—one thing that I am very happy with,” Yakteen mentioned June 25 on the eleventh Welfare and Security of the Racehorse Summit from the Longship Room at Kroger Area in Lexington.

Throughout a two-person panel dialog titled “5 Years Later—an Replace on Santa Anita Security Reforms” alongside Dr. Dionne Benson, chief veterinary officer for 1/ST Racing, Yakteen gave his perspective on security and regulatory procedures in California. 

Learn Extra About RaceTrack Security Initiatives in BloodHorse’s Prime Precedence Collection

A lot of California’s guidelines have been mirrored in laws enacted throughout a lot of the nation by the Horseracing Integrity and Security Authority. Although Yakteen initially suspected the brand new guidelines in California would current a problem, he mentioned he discovered the transition to adapting to them to be “very easy.”

These guidelines geared toward bettering horse security and welfare—enacted with joint efforts by stakeholders in California, starting from horsemen to tracks and the state regulator, the California Horse Racing Board—revamped remedy laws. Moreover, adjustments led to veterinary interventions, exercise sign-ups, monitored coaching, elevated entry to superior diagnostics, and assist for injured racehorses.

For the latter, that meant that horses with closed single distal limb accidents had been radiographed previous to euthanasia and potential surgical choices examined.

Benson mentioned that a type of choices, a fetlock arthrodesis program that started in 2020, has been successful. In that process, plates and screws are utilized to stabilize a joint by fusing bones, eliminating motion and offering stability.

Many years in the past, Benson famous that typically simply essentially the most priceless racehorses went via the process. Some felt this fusion may detract from a horse’s high quality of life.

However she mentioned that over the past 4 1/2 years of this surgical program in California, 16 out of 24 horses which have gone via this process have “been saved due to it.”

She confirmed a video of a number of fulfilling different duties in second careers, commenting about one, “I attempted to undertake this horse; someone beat me to it.”

Although racing fatalities dropped throughout racing at Santa Anita Park over the previous six months, total fatalities within the state are up in 2024 in comparison with the primary half of the yr of each 2023 and 2022. Nonetheless, the figures are removed from 2019, counting all tracks and coaching facilities throughout breeds, CHRB government director Scott Chaney famous final week throughout a board assembly.

Chaney additionally famous throughout the CHRB assembly that two upcoming laws will go into impact Jan. 1. The extra notable of the 2 is requiring that an attending veterinarian carry out diagnostic imaging inside seven days of injecting a corticosteroid right into a high-motion joint.

Adjustments that started in California which have unfold elsewhere have additionally led to enchancment in security, Benson mentioned.

She mentioned 1/ST Racing, which along with operating Santa Anita Park in California and now-shuttered Golden Gate Fields within the state, has seen a 40% decline in fatalities at its Gulfstream Park facility in South Florida after implementing required veterinary examination procedures for entry and exercises that had been initially applied in California.

Each Yakteen and Benson acknowledged the veterinary prices of such examinations, however each deemed them definitely worth the value. Yakteen mentioned that shut examinations of runners, together with diagnostics, can spot bodily points at an earlier stage. This will imply much less time on the sidelines for that horse in restoration.

“The game is pleasurable when everybody comes again wholesome,” Yakteen mentioned.