CHRB Fatality Report Advocates Common-Sense Changes, With Intriguing Longer-Term Concepts

[Wandering Eyes]

No illegal medications or procedures were uncovered in the long-awaited California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) report on the 23 horse deaths at Santa Anita Park during the 2018-19 December-March period. The summary of the investigation, nearly a year in the making, was made public on Tuesday (read the full version here). It is replete with common-sense recommendations regarding horse welfare, track safety, training protocols, a focus on pre-existing conditions, and proposals to expand the list of prohibited medications and practices. Yet many of these ideas have either already been adopted or are in the process of being addressed by new CHRB regulations and house rules at racetracks. But the report also contains some broader concepts that, if implemented, would change both the physical infrastructure and the culture of racing at Santa Anita. The recommendations that fall under this category include switching the main track back to a synthetic surface, making room in the backstretch stabling area for a “paddock turn-out where horses can be outdoors and with more space,” and replacing the claiming system entirely with either merit racing (horses ranked into class levels by racing officials) or auction races (horses get sold to the highest bidder after, not before, the race). In the more immediate future, California trainers could see horse management changes that get mandated as a contingency of stall applications and/or horsemen’s agreements, such as being required “to maintain simple health records on individual horses in their care” and to attend continuing education classes that focus on health and safety. The report backs up the need for increased trainer responsibility based on findings that emerged from the in-depth study of the 23 fatalities. “From the 23 cases, 16 horses were under the care of trainers with at least one other fatality within a 12-month period,” the report states. “Furthermore, two trainers had multiple fatalities within this cluster, and a third had a second fatality later in the same race meeting. The majority of horsemen did not review the necropsy reports on their horses; furthermore, many did not display good working knowledge of anatomy or grasp the significance of major pre-existing lesions.” This story will be updated.

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