Brown: Santa Anita has blueprint Churchill Downs should use to address rash of horse deaths

Dr. Greg Ferraro knows Churchill Downs’ decision on Friday to suspend racing operations for its spring meet, as extreme as it may seem, might just be the first step that’s needed to curtail the recent rash of horse deaths.

Ferraro has seen this kind of desperation before.

Santa Anita Park in California had a rash of 30 horse deaths from December 2018 to June 2019 that rocked the state's horse racing industry. The track's ratio of 3.01 fatalities per 1,000 starts in ‘19, according to Equine Injury Database compiled by The Jockey Club, was double the national average.

The deaths led to a major overhaul from 1/ST Racing, which runs Santa Anita, and the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB).

“In the situation we were in, in 2019, everyone knew that we either had to straighten it out or we were going to be out of business,” said Ferraro, who was appointed the chairman of the CHRB by California governor Gavin Newsom in November 2019 with the mandate to make horse racing safer.

While Churchill Downs already has some of the resources Santa Anita did not have back then to straighten things out now, it should use what the California track did as its model for change.

Suspended operations: Churchill Downs Spring Meet moving to Ellis Park after 12 horse deaths

C.L. Brown: Horse racing is at crossroads — it needs national standards and these new measures

Back in 2019, Santa Anita started with the drastic step of shutting down for three weeks.

After 12 horse deaths in a span of 30 days, Churchill Downs was forced into taking immediate action. Its Spring Meet, which still has a month of races left, will be continued at Ellis Park in Henderson starting June 10.

“What has happened at our track is deeply upsetting and absolutely unacceptable,” Bill Carstanjen, the chief executive officer of Churchill Downs Inc., said in a statement Friday.

Carstanjen could not be reached for further comment following Friday's announcement.

With scrutiny heightened, an internal review and separate investigations by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) and the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC), concluded there was “no single factor” and “no discernable pattern” that linked the deaths. The same was true at Santa Anita when its deaths were viewed as multifactorial.

With the investigations clearing the track at Churchill Downs from being a factor in the deaths, Louisville-based trainer Kenny McPeek said he was a "little surprised" by the move to Ellis Park.

“But at the same time, I think it’s probably the right thing to do,” said McPeek, who added that he believed Churchill Downs was doing “everything in their power” to get things right.

The two areas Ferraro pointed out that have helped curve deaths at Santa Anita included more independent eyes on the horses.

The track began to utilize multiple exams from different veterinarians. It also added spotters to watch horses train and look for anything out of the ordinary. Horses that raced at Santa Anita were subject to a five-member panel that considered when horses were entered, their work pattern, and previous races to make sure there were no red flags that indicated the horse needed to be re-examined.

What Ferraro called the most obvious, yet hardest, change to make was to limit medication in racing. CHRB research at the time showed that nine out of every 10 fatal breakdowns occurred in horses that had pre-existing injuries.

Ferraro said when they moved pre-race medication allowances back to 48 hours before a race, it “made a big difference right away.” Ferraro is also against the use of intra-articular injections, which are administered into the open space between the bones in the joint capsule. The process is often used to give horses anti-inflammatory medication that reduces pain and increases range of motion.

Guess who's back?: KHRC grants Kentucky Derby winning trainer Rick Dutrow license for first time since 2011

'Unacceptable price to pay': Congress members call for transparency on Churchill Downs horse deaths

Since implementing its rule changes, Santa Anita had single digit racing deaths in 2020 (6), 2021 (9) and 2022 (4), according to the Equine Injury Database. Last year, that meant only 0.63 fatalities per 1,000 starts.

The track's success is why the newly established HISA, which wasn’t around four years ago to help Santa Anita, adapted a lot of what worked in California to its plan to improve racetrack safety.

The national organization created by Congress in 2020 rolled out its first phase of rules in July 2022 and just had its antidoping schedule implemented two weeks ago.

HISA made the recommendation to suspend racing at Churchill Downs after holding an emergency summit Tuesday and Wednesday with the KHRC and a panel of veterinarians.

The KHRC reached out to its counterpart in California, the CHRB, and has already put some changes into motion in response to the recent fatalities. It has enhanced its pre-race scrutiny on every horse for “racing soundness.” And it created a new job with the responsibility of coordinating “daily track safety measures.”

The emergency summit prompted a few other changes: purse payouts are now restricted to the top five finishers; a horse can only make four starts during a rolling eight-week period; and horses that lose by more than 12 lengths in five consecutive starts will lose eligibility until cleared by the equine medical director to return to competition.

Making changes: Churchill Downs and Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority announce new safety measures

Belmont Stakes field 2023: What to know about National Treasure, Forte and other contenders

Churchill Downs already has some advantages Santa Anita did not have back in 2019. It became the first track outside of California to install an equine positron emission tomography scan machine. A PET scan is a diagnostic imaging test particularly helpful in identifying potential injuries to the lower limbs of horses and can be conducted without laying them down.

Santa Anita installed one in December 2019 in response to its deaths. Churchill made plans last fall to get one installed, and it has been up and running this spring. The track also brought a lot of diagnostic equipment online including an CAT scan, MRI and nuclear scan.

“The culture on the back side for a long time was treat first, diagnose later,” Ferraro said. “We’re trying to reverse that.”

Churchill Downs should further change its culture by being more transparent.

Santa Anita and the CHRB opened up after its wave of deaths in 2019. The CHRB website now lists its equine fatalities from every track, and it's broken down into categories like training and racing and what type of injury it was.

While Churchill Downs does submit its totals to the Equine Injury Database, the incidents remain hidden from public view. But 12 deaths in 30 days is something that can’t stay secret.

“If you think that the public is going to put up with continued injury rates and death rates that we have nationwide, you’ve got another thing coming,” Ferraro said.

That’s a warning Churchill Downs can’t afford to ignore.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter at @CLBrownHoops.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Churchill Downs horse deaths 2023: How Santa Anita can help Louisville