Two Barns at Gulfstream Under Precautionary Quarantine

Two barns at Gulfstream Park have been placed under quarantine as a precaution when a horse at the track was euthanized following neurological difficulties the evening of March 9.

The quarantine prohibited horses in the affected stables from training March 10 and resulted in the scratches of 14 horses from Wednesday's races, according to Dr. Dionne Benson, chief veterinary officer for The Stronach Group, which owns Gulfstream.

The quarantine was made out of an abundance of caution, Benson said, during a time when veterinarians and equine health officials are on alert after recent discoveries of EHV-1 in this country and abroad. Two cases of EHV-1 were reported over the past week in Maryland, one at Laurel Park, leading to a quarantine of four barns there and the cancellation of racing March 12. A barn has also been quarantined in Ocala, Fla., following confirmed EHV-1 cases.

The Gulfstream quarantine was first reported by Daily Racing Form on Twitter.

EHV-1, from the family of the equine herpesvirus, can cause respiratory and neurological disease and abortion in pregnant mares. It can spread by horse-to-horse contact, through the use of shared items such as tack and water buckets, and can also be in the air around a horse shedding the virus.

"I don't necessarily think that (the stricken horse) was infectious but again, we're not going to risk any other horses as a result of just making an assumption," Benson said.

She indicated two barns are under quarantine, not merely one, due to reports the horse had gotten loose and had potentially been in another barn. A necropsy and EHV-1 testing is pending and results could be returned late Wednesday, she added. 

Benson, reached via telephone when traveling in her vehicle, said she did not have information on the name of the euthanized horse or its connections. She said it had been at Gulfstream since the fall.

There is no "history of shipping to Ocala, and without obviously being in Maryland. So we don't believe it's at all related," Benson said. "Again, it is entirely likely that it is an acute injury situation, but in order to be very certain and be very conservative, we've elected to involve the state vet and quarantine the barns for the time being. It's a very short amount of quarantine if everything is as we think it is, but certainly avoids a larger problem if for some reason this horse has an infectious disease."