catastrophic injury study

Pennsylvania's Parx Racing has issued a statement following news the turf course at the Bensalem track has been closed due to dangerous conditions. For background on the situation, which included the breakdown of Causes Trouble (Creative Cause) Aug. 24, please click here. HISA released a statement earlier Thursday indicating a series of tests will be run. Thursday afternoon, officials at Parx released their own statement. It appears in full and unedited below: "The recent spurious comments made by the President of the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horseman's Association, Bob Hutt, regarding the...

On Wednesday, Aug. 28 it was reported that HISA and the local horsemen's group pressured Parx management to close down its turf course. Now the racetrack is planning to put the surface through a series of tests, according to a statement issued by HISA on Thursday. Parx management has informed the oversight organization that they have arranged for Racing Services Testing Laboratory (RSTL) to test and evaluate the turf surface. Additionally, HISA has requested that members of the Track Surface Advisory Group visit in the coming days to assess its...

Handicappers use the term "bounce" to explain a poor performance of a horse or to project a possible poor performance. This handicapping angle is more pronounced in demanding stakes races where a horse will often meet a field where only a top performance will result in a placing. But what does a "'bounce" really mean? It refers to a horse that had a recent fast performance, several tough races in a short period or many races in a racing campaign. The handicapper is implicitly (and unknowingly) using basic biology to...

The Kentucky Thoroughbred Association and Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association are jointly funding a $25,000 grant directed to a catastrophic injury study conducted at the University of Kentucky Gluck Equine Research Center. The study will seek to identify horses at risk for catastrophic injury through the use of mRNA expression analysis of blood samples. Drs. Allen Page, Emma Adam and David Horohov of the Gluck Center previously developed an approach for identifying horses at risk for catastrophic injury through the use of mRNA expression analysis of blood samples. It was...