California adopts new rules that put horse racing under a microscope, before and after deadly injuries

In another major reform growing out of the deaths of 23 horses at Santa Anita Park this season, the chief of the state’s regulatory agency said Thursday it will now assign an investigator and a steward to dig into every death at California racetracks, even if it means having to subpoena records.

The state already pays for postmortem examinations for every horse, but these simpler investigations were often inconsistent, particularly when it came to analyzing medications in a horse’s system. Toxicology was requested only on a case-by-case basis until about a year ago and veterinarians were not required to provide medication histories to the laboratory conducting the exams.

“Now, every necropsy is going to be part of a more thorough investigation,” said Rick Baedeker, executive director of the California Horse Racing Board.

The CHRB is backing major reforms to the horse racing industry in response to a shocking spike in equine fatalities at the renowned Santa Anita racetrack in Arcadia. The state and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office are conducting a joint criminal investigation into the 23 deaths since Dec. 26.

Seventy subpoenas have been issued so far, according to Baedeker.

The CHRB even briefly considered ending Santa Anita’s season early, but board members meeting Thursday decided to keep the track open after it has gone several weeks without any additional deaths.

However, the backlash from the deaths continues to threaten the entire industry, and state officials are trying to stem the tide by accelerating reforms that, in some cases, were unsuccessfully proposed years ago.

New rules approved this week will dramatically increase the state’s scrutiny of both living and dead horses by severely limiting medications and forcing stakeholders to maintain paper trails for every treatment given to a horse. Several mirror stricter international standards.

At its monthly meeting Thursday at Santa Anita, members of the California Horse Racing Board repeatedly described their approvals as “common-sense” decisions.

A spotlight on every death

Now, whenever a horse dies, trainers and veterinarians will have to appear before a three-member panel and produce documents showing the horse’s training and medical history for at least 60 days before the fatality. Trainers will be legally responsible for tracking each of their horse’s medications and treatments.

Both changes have to undergo a 45-day comment period before final approval, but neither were opposed at the meeting.

“Very frequently, we do not get a history of who did what and where,” said Rick Arthur, the CHRB’s equine medical director.

Under the previous system, a thorough review of those records “is rarely conducted in the absence of suspicious or illegal circumstances, and, consequently, there is little opportunity for the CHRB to identify trends and behaviors that could prevent future injuries,” according to a staff report.

The panel is separate from the postmortem investigations described by Baedeker and is intended as a means of collecting data, rather than punishing stakeholders, according to Arthur.

State officials believe the panel will help the stakeholders better understand what caused the deaths and how to potentially prevent new ones.

California Thoroughbred Trainers supports the changes, many of which are already voluntarily followed by the association’s members, according to Alan Balch, the CTT’s executive director.

“We want to prevent any serious accident any way we can,” Balch said.

Medication crackdown

Starting in May, California will roll out a statewide ban on certain medications within 48 hours of a race or timed workout. The ban mirrors one put into place by Santa Anita’s owners in response to the deaths at that facility.

The state agency singled out nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories, in particular, by restricting the permitted amounts in a post-race or workout drug test to a fraction of the previously authorized dosage.

NSAIDs in higher doses can mask preexisting injuries, even from the veterinarians tasked with determining if a horse is sound enough to race. Nearly all of the fatal breakdowns in California involve a preexisting injury, according to the CHRB.

Half of the 36 horses that died in the year prior to the current meet were on at least one anti-inflammatory. NSAIDs are the most commonly abused drugs in California horse racing. Roughly 60 percent of the medication violations last year involved these types of pain relievers.

Other medications, such as local anesthetics and analgesics, will be permitted up to 24 hours before a workout.

“None of those drugs, if we can find them, will still have an effect,” Arthur said.