California reports continuing drop in racehorse deaths in 2022

In a reversal of the alarming statistics that got international attention in 2019, California continued to experience a decline in racehorse deaths last year, according to a report from a top regulator.

“I believe California to have the best safety record in the country,” executive director Scott Chaney said Thursday at a meeting of the California Horse Racing Board in Sacramento.

Crediting added safety initiatives, Chaney said there were 64 catastrophic injuries in 2022 that led to the deaths of horses. That was down from 71 in 2021.

“Since calendar year 2019, total catastrophic injuries have decreased 50 percent,” Chaney said. “To put 2022 into context, of the 64 (cases), 30, or less than half, were musculoskeletal injuries, the rest being sickness, accidents and sudden deaths.

Chaney’s figures did not necessarily include deaths that might have happened away from racecourses governed by the CHRB or at off-track veterinary facilities.

“For further context, there are approximately 30,000 runners each year in California and 70,000 workouts,” Chaney said. “On any given day, there are approximately 4,000 horses at CHRB-regulated facilities and around 8,000-10,000 unique horses at our facilities in any given year.”

Awareness was heightened four years ago when Santa Anita experienced 37 racehorse deaths that led to intensified coverage in mainstream media. That spike in 2019 was one of the motivating factors that led to the passage in late 2020 of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act.

Constitutional challenges to HISA led to court challenges and a rewrite of the bill that launched it. In turn, medication regulations that were due to take effect three weeks ago have been on hold.

“For the time being, the outcomes of the legal challenges are difficult to predict,” Chaney said. “The authority has now projected a start date for anti-doping-medication control rules of sometime in mid to late March.”

Chaney punctuated his report on the decline in racehorse deaths by saying, “Of course, there’s still work to be done.”