CHRB Approves Los Alamitos' Safety Plan

The California Horse Racing Board unanimously voted July 20 to approve a safety plan provided by Los Alamitos Race Course. The required plan was submitted following a CHRB emergency meeting 10 days earlier due to a recent spike in equine fatalities at Los Alamitos.

According to CHRB statistics 21 horses have died from racing or training at Los Alamitos this year, including 10 since May 26. That rash caused the CHRB to call an emergency meeting July 10. Two of those fatalities, a Quarter Horse and a Thoroughbred, happened since the meeting.

Los Alamitos conducts a regular nighttime mixed-breed meet of Quarter Horses and Thoroughbreds in addition to periodic afternoon meets exclusive to Thoroughbreds. It also serves as a major training facility.

During the emergency meeting regulators passed a motion to permit Los Alamitos to continue racing on a probationary status for 10 calendar days before reconvening Monday to assess the plan to reduce fatalities. 

Proposals by Los Alamitos included:

• Adding one qualified veterinarian each morning the track is open as a dedicated observer of horses entering and exiting the track for training purposes.
• Requiring examinations by attending veterinarians during the specified days immediately preceding a work or race entry for the express purpose of evaluating the horse's soundness to work or race.
• Requiring qualifications for horses eligible to start, including examinations for long-layoff entries.
• Prohibiting the entry of any horse in any race if the horse has received an intra-articular injection during the 14 days immediately preceding a start.
• Not permitting any horse to participate in a workout or race if the horse receives nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs during the 48-hour period immediately preceding the workout or race or has been treated with a second NSAID that could appear in a post-work or post-race blood or urine test.  
• Have a review panel analyze race entries, and based on information deemed of concern, deny entry or request the scratch of any horse the panel determines unsuitable for reasons of horse and/or rider safety.
• Place each fatality occurring on the grounds—regardless of causation—under a "fatality review" conducted by a panel consisting of a qualified representative of track management, the track veterinarian, and the racing secretary.

Los Alamitos owner Dr. Ed Allred, who was open to the board's recommendations to improve the plan, said he was committed to the changes long-term.

"It's essential that we do this. We still feel we have a track that's equal to or superior to any in California as far as racing surfaces are concerned. I think there are other areas where we could stand some improvement and we're going to work on those things," Allred said.

Part of the equine safety plan was implemented over the weekend. CHRB executive director Scott Chaney noted the Los Alamitos entry review panel recommended that five horses be scratched from Friday's card.

CHRB equine medical director Dr. Rick Arthur said monitoring of activity on the backside will be increased with surveillance to take place on both race days and non-race days.

"One of the issues at Los Alamitos has been that we have very little stable area surveillance, whether it's CHRB or anyone else," Arthur said. "Dr. Allred had mentioned that they are going to identify a person to actually go into the stable area and monitor what's going on and actually assign those people if they see a veterinarian working on a horse, (find out) who is that and what they're doing, mark down the time, and that sort of thing.

"We already started this, by the way, this last week. The CHRB has typically just assigned a safety steward with Los Alamitos on race days, and that's mostly during the races. We got permission for an agreement with the director to increase an assignment in the stable area on non-race days of the safety steward to specifically do a very similar monitoring of activity on the backside.

"In that stance, both Los Alamitos and the CHRB are in precinct monitoring activities on the backside to hope to ensure that there is compliance to the protocols that they have laid out here. I think it's a win-win. This has been an ongoing problem as the chairman and executive director know that I've been concerned with even before this recent brouhaha and even previous chairman and executive directors as well. There is a step in the right direction."