Santa Anita winter season to go ahead but with tougher measures

Santa Anita was given unanimous regulatory backing for its winter racing season but could be forced to cancel meetings in bad weather to try to reduce injuries which blighted the course in March.

That was the outcome of the California Horse Racing Board meeting led by its new chairman Gregory Ferraro, who pushed a proposed whip debate back to a later date.

The Californian track, which hosted this month's Breeders' Cup, was hit by a spate of horse deaths last March which resulted in a public outcry and racing being cancelled for 13 days.

That was after nearly a foot of rain fell on the track through the winter and during the break the main track underwent renovation and inspection and will again be worked on next week ahead of the new season.

Santa Anita's winter-spring meet is scheduled for 104 racing days, starting on December 26 through to June 21 but will be reduced by 12 undetermined days as part of an agreement reached earlier this year.

"The whole idea is to protect horses during inclement weather situations," Ferraro said during the meeting held at Del Mar, north of San Diego. "We won't race or train or race on tracks deemed unsafe."

Santa Anita: hosted the Breeders' Cup earlier this monthCredit: Edward Whitaker

Santa Anita is again exploring the installation of a synthetic surface on the main track or the infield training track but no decisions have been made while track officials continue to study how the artificial surface would perform in Southern California's extreme temperatures.

Other restrictions which are part of Santa Anita's winter-spring meet licence include not running claiming races worth less than $10,000, limiting short-term activity for horses injected with corticosteroids in fetlock joints, and not allowing two-year-olds in 2020 to be treated with the anti-bleeding medication Lasix, which was announced earlier this year.

Earlier this year, The Stronach Group imposed tougher medication rules at Santa Anita to try to reduce fatalities. Ferraro warned that further medication policies were on the horizon.

The board, despite one dissenting member, agreed to postpone debate about the whip, which is another hot topic in the state.

"We don't really know what the right answer is," Ferraro added. "We need to find the right answer before we just jump into something."

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