New York Change Would Relax Claiming Price Rule

State regulators in New York are moving to relax rules regarding claiming races established in the wake of the high-profile rash of equine deaths during the 2012 Aqueduct winter meet.

After initially voicing questions about the need to change the regulations, the board of the New York State Gaming Commission approved a preliminary rule Sept. 24 to give flexibility to amend minimum claiming prices for claiming races to a "case-by-case basis" that can be granted for all or part of a race meet.

"We would like some comfort level,'' gaming commission member Peter J. Moschetti Jr. told Dr. Scott Palmer, the state's equine medical director, about taking regulatory actions that might affect general trends toward reduced Thoroughbred equine deaths.

"I guess we're looking for some assurance that we're not going to reverse the positive trend,'' Moshetti added.

Palmer, though, assured the commission that the newly proposed rules will be modest in nature and that regulators will "watch it carefully" to see if there is any impact on equine safety. He said the rule maintains strong controls for regulators and that he would have been "very uncomfortable" had the claiming price rules been relaxed with a higher, uniform minimum pricing standard.

Among numerous changes that came out of the 2012 equine death problems at Aqueduct, the state set a minimum price for horses in claiming races at not less than 50% "of the value of the purse for the race.'' 

"The rule reduced the incentive of an owner or trainer to enter a potentially lame or uncompetitive horse in such a race,'' the commission's counsel, Edmund C. Burns, wrote to the commission earlier this month in a document supporting the revised regulation.

Burns wrote that "various parties" had requested more flexibility in the claiming price rule.

The proposed regulation, which now will go through a public comment period, keeps the 50% threshold intact unless Thoroughbred race operators in New York ask the agency for a lower minimum price for claiming races for all or part of a race meet.

"The commission shall not approve such a request unless the track has implemented increased measures required by the commission to ensure close examination of the competitiveness, soundness, and safety of each horse entered in such a (claiming) race,'' the proposed rule adds.

Palmer said the case-by-case provision in the proposed rule "made me more comfortable with this'' and that "important strides" over the past six years in equine safety will not be jeopardized.

"We did some things that worked out pretty well,'' Palmer told the board. He cited a system that will remain unchanged in which the state maintains and constantly updates a list of horses that might be deemed to be at increased risk of injury, which he said is used to make "informed decisions" about whether a particular horse should be permitted to race.

Palmer assured the board that the state is nimble enough to reverse any change in the claiming price level that might be permitted for a track if the new rule goes fully into effect after the comment period.

The state's prior claiming price rules were believed to be among the factors that contributed to the spike in equine deaths in 2012. "I think the key here is we continue with the ongoing quality control,'' Palmer told the commission's board.