Churchill Downs: What can be learned at emergency summit?

Ahead of the emergency summit called by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, HISA chief executive Lisa Lazarus met with members of the media Tuesday to discuss the investigation into the rash of equine fatalities at Churchill Downs.

One topic she addressed was the process the agency has in place when there is a “cluster” of fatalities, such as the 12 deaths at Churchill Downs since April 27. She said HISA looks at three potential causes: racing surface, veterinary oversight and misuse of medications.

HISA employed Mick Peterson, executive director of the Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory, to inspect the Louisville, Ky., track.

“He's been to Churchill Downs a number of times over the last month and did not identify any red flags, any causes for concern, anything we could remedy right away,” Lazarus said.

After the investigation work that has been done, she said, “what we now believe that the situation calls for additional scrutiny on the surface just to make sure that nothing's being missed.”

To that end, HISA is enlisting Dennis Moore, a veteran track superintendent, “as a second opinion, as a set of expert eyes to come and look at the service itself to make sure that nothing has been missed.”

His inspection was scheduled for Wednesday.

Regarding the veterinary aspect, “We believe that a very intensified, careful veterinarian process is in order because of the fact that there's no real discernible pattern amongst the fatalities that have occurred at Churchill Downs since late April.”

A meeting was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon with veterinarian teams from HISA, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and Churchill Downs.

“We'll do a careful review of every single one of those horses, make sure that they have all the information they need, that there's no missing documentation from whether it needs any sort of follow up, any interviews of folks that are connected to the horse. And then they will look for any patterns and discuss any potential changes in procedures that they might want to implement going forward.”

Asked whether HISA officials had considered recommending a suspension of racing at Churchill Downs, Lazarus said, “that is one of the things that we're trying to determine through this process. Given that there was nothing that was flagged or clearly a concern from a surface standpoint, that was not an action that we thought was necessary, appropriate at that moment in time. But obviously, the reason why we have the second opinion expert coming is because we want to make sure that we're confident in that decision. And since races don't resume until Thursday, they have a couple of days to go through that analysis.”

One of the challenges of the situation, she said, was that “I have not had a single jockey or trainer tell me that they believe that the track is a factor in these fatalities. And so that's why we really have to approach it from so many different angles and perspectives.”