The New York Task Force presenting information at a Racing Officials Accreditation Program conference
According to a blog post by Tom Noonan, New York racing officials are not following one of their own recommendations to improve equine safety. A task force formed in 2012 to examine the circumstances behind a spate of sudden deaths at Aqueduct determined, among many other things, that fatal injuries were more likely to occur in claiming races where the purse exceeded the assigned claiming prices by more than 1.6:1.
Noonan writes that in 2012, New York State Gaming Commission equine medical director Dr. Scott Palmer, chairman of the task force, wrote a memo justifying a ratio of 2.0. This year, according to the blog post, the commission decided to permit ratios greater than 2.0.
In the sixth race on Sunday, runner Sundae on Sunday collapsed and was later euthanized in a claiming race. The claiming price for that race was $25,000, and the purse was $52,000.
Read more at Tom Noonan
New to the Paulick Report? Click here to sign up for our daily email newsletter to keep up on this and other stories happening in the Thoroughbred industry.
Copyright © 2019 Paulick Report.
