Horse Racing News is the source of thoroughbred racing information with horse racing odds, betting tips, racing picks, race results, and handicapping. Latest news and articles on top horse racing contenders, jockeys, trainers, three-year-olds, race tracks, and major stakes races such as the Triple Crown races: the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes as well as the Breeders' Cup horse races.Racetracks To Monitor Horse Injuries
Posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2007
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Just over a year after Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro shattered his leg in the Preakness, 30 racetracks across the country are set to launch a program to record on-track injuries to horses.
Under the new system, veterinarians at each track will fill out a standardized form to compile detailed reports of the injuries. The pilot program begins Friday at tracks from California to Florida, including three in Kentucky: Churchill Downs, Keeneland and Turfway Park.
Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, where Barbaro suffered his ultimately fatal injury last May, hasn’t yet signed on.
The monitoring system, one of the suggestions generated last October at an industry summit on horse welfare and safety in Lexington, will give tracks better information about not just how many injuries there are but also what causes them.
While most tracks have been keeping records of injuries — particularly catastrophic ones — the data was almost useless when comparing one to another because of different definitions used by the onsite veterinarians. For example, one track might consider racetrack fatalities only to be horses euthanized that day, whereas others could include horses such as Barbaro that died several months later.
“It is not going to be an absolute panacea to eliminate injuries,” said Mary Scollay, association veterinarian at Calder Race Course and Gulfstream Park, who developed the system. “It is going to be a tool racetracks can use.”
Scollay is compiling a computerized database, which will determine not just what percentage of horses are injured on a given race course but also the types of injuries, the location on the track where they happened and details about the horse — including breeding history and any medications they may have been using.
The results will be kept confidential, released only to the reporting veterinarians, who will share them with the tracks.
There are many proposed solutions to making tracks safer — from synthetic surfaces to improved guard rails — but track officials are hoping to use this information to determine which would be most helpful.
Tags: Barbaro, Race Tracks News
"Racetracks To Monitor Horse Injuries" was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 9:13 am and is filed under Calder Race Course, Churchill Downs, Gulfstream Park, Horse Racing Industry, Keeneland, Pimlico Track, Race Tracks News, Turfway Park, USA Horse Racing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
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