Training Time Set For EHV-1 Quarantined Saratoga Horses
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Photo: Skip Dickstein
Horses train over the Oklahoma Training Track at Saratoga Race Course
The New York Racing Association announced July 16 that afebrile/asymptomatic horses quarantined in Barn 86 at Saratoga Race Course under EHV-1 protocols would be permitted to train outside normal training hours over the Oklahoma Training Track from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET. This time period follows when the general horse population trains there.
During the initial quarantine period, the 46 horses stabled in Barn 86 will not be permitted to race. Two trainers, Jorge Abreu and Kenny McPeek, have horses stabled there.
Among the horses that McPeek has stabled at Saratoga is Peter Callahan's Swiss Skydiver , the champion 3-year-old filly of last year.
The adjusted training hours come after NYRA announced its quarantine July 15, which followed an unnamed, unraced filly trained by Jorge Abreu testing positive for EHV-1 Thursday afternoon. She had been sent to Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital July 11 after developing a fever.
As of Thursday, no additional horses in the quarantined barn had exhibited symptoms.
EHV-1, from the family of the equine herpesvirus, is a common DNA virus that can cause respiratory and neurological disease. It can spread directly from horse-to-horse contact and can be passed to horses by humans from the use of contaminated clothing, tack, feed and water buckets, and equipment. The air around the horse that is shedding the virus can also carry it.
NYRA has not announced the length of the quarantine.