Governor Adopts Task Force Findings
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced his office has received the findings and recommendations of the New York Task Force on Racehorse Health and Safety and that the state will undertake an unprecedented series of reforms to promote equine safety at New York racetracks.
The Task Force was appointed at the request of the Governor’s office following a spate of deaths at Aqueduct Racetrack during its winter meeting. The Task Force was directed to review the circumstances involving the deaths, analyze the causes, and recommend any necessary action to prevent equine breakdowns at New York Racing Association (NYRA) operated facilities.
The Task Force was also charged with examining horse claiming rules, veterinary procedures and drug use in order to promote equine safety.
“New York is committed to placing the health, safety and welfare of the equine athlete as the top priority of horse racing,” Cuomo said. “As we bring accountability and responsible business practices to horse racing, these recommendations will be an integral part of a new and improved racing product. I have requested the Racing and Wagering Board to promptly adopt the changes identified by the Task Force to create a safetyconscious environment for racehorses. I sincerely thank the members of the Task Force on Racehorse Health and Safety for their important work.”
The governor’s actions include recommending a complete overhaul of NYRA’s veterinary practices, the creation of an Equine Medical Director position within the state’s racing regulatory body, strict prohibitions regarding medications, and new rules for claiming races. Since the Task Force found that the inability of jockeys to communicate their concerns about the health of horses established an unacceptably elevated level of risk, the state will create an anonymous equine safety hotline to enable jockeys to report horse health concerns without fear of retribution.
The Task Force found that while there was no single root cause for the Aqueduct fatalities, a combination of factors likely led to the increased rate of horse deaths. These factors included: increased purses in claiming races that incentivized stakeholders to run substandard horses; the use of corticosteroids that may have limited the ability of veterinarians to identify preexisting conditions that disposed horses to catastrophic injuries; a lack of protocols and inconsistencies in pre-race inspections and veterinary procedures; and mild weather on a track designed for harsher winters.
During its comprehensive examination, the Task Force found that NYRA’s organizational veterinary structure was inherently conflicted by reporting to an entity (the Racing Office) whose function is inconsistent with deliberate and careful equine risk management practice.
Other structural shortcomings with NYRA’s veterinary practice include: a lack of uniform protocols and procedures among track veterinarians, a failure to standardize risk factors to assess racehorses’ fitness to run, and no uniformity in veterinary care recordkeeping or proper use of existing veterinary practice management software.
The State Racing and Wagering Board and NYRA will be directed to take a number of corrective actions, including:
– establishing an Office of the Equine Medical Director to oversee horse safety;
– creating an independent veterinary practice structure within NYRA which will put the health of the horses first and which reporting directly to the chief executive officer of NYRA;
– establishing an anonymous reporting mechanism for jockeys to report health or safety violations without fear of reprisal;
– prohibiting the use of certain drugs days before racing;
– extending the claiming rule that voids claims in the event a claimed horse dies on the race track to make a claim voidable within one hour of the conclusion of a race if the horse is vanned off the track;
– improving documentation of findings of fatal injuries, including the development of standard protocols for handling of horses sustaining fatal injuries; and
– requiring testing laboratory accreditation.
The NYRA will also examine the possibility of installing of a synthetic surface on the inner track at Aqueduct.
The full report is available at www.governor.ny.gov/assets/documents/ Report.pdf.
