equine safety

According to the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB), two bills--SB 800 and AB 1974--have been passed and signed into law in the state of California. Both bills are instrumental in strengthening California's commitment to both equine and jockey welfare and safety. Senator Bill Dodd's SB 800 provides greater access to veterinary records for racehorses, requires the reporting and publication of equine fatalities that occur at facilities regulated by the CHRB, and requires the publication of positive post-race test findings within five business days of their confirmation. In anticipation of this...

In the fifth and final installment of a series of Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation webinars that took the place of the canceled ninth annual Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit, Drs. Tim Parkin and Mary Scollay examined Tuesday The Jockey Club's Equine Injury Database (EID) and its findings since being launched in 2009. "The genesis of the EID goes back to Barbaro," explained Scollay, the executive director of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium. "When he was injured in the Preakness, a lot of attention and phone calls were...

The 19th annual Track Superintendents Field Day, originally scheduled for this coming Sept. 14-16, has been rescheduled for March 2021. The event will still be held at Remington Park in Oklahoma City and hosted by that track's superintendent, Bob Blackburn. The Field Day brings together track superintendents and their crews from around North America and beyond to share ideas and information about track maintenance, safety, equipment and more. Last year's event at Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races in West Virginia attracted more than 100 track superintendents and staff from...

Tuesday afternoon, the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) announced that the California Thoroughbred Business League (CTBL) board had "unanimously approved" a $2-million subsidy from its reserves to be paid to Post Time Self Insurance Group--the self-insured workers' compensation program for trainers in the state. As part of the deal--which took some three months to negotiate--the various stakeholders have agreed to the creation of a new position of "Director of Safety," who will help establish and regulate uniform safety standards and implement them across all California training and racing facilities. Th...

by Ramon Dominguez and Ryan Moore We have watched, with increasing concern, as momentum to effectively ban the use of the riding crop has built around the world. The negative perception of the crop is real and it matters. You may think it is overblown, the domain of activists, but those among us who dismiss animal welfare concerns will first find ourselves riding without crops, and then not riding at all. We shoulder some blame in this scenario. As riders we have failed--and fail still--to make a persuasive argument about...

Following the cancellation of the ninth Welfare and Safety of the June 20 Racehorse Summit in Lexington, Kentucky, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation kicked off an educational series of weekly webinars Tuesday afternoon. Presented by Dr. Katherine Garrett, shareholder at Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital, the initial segment on equine health and safety featured 'Fetlock Injuries: Palmar metacarpal disease and how the various imaging modalities can be used to help diagnose it.' During the course of the 45-minute lecture, which was followed by a short...