Barn at Mahoning Valley quarantined due to strangles

A barn at Mahoning Valley Racecourse in Ohio remains under quarantine after tests earlier this week revealed three new positives for strangles, according to horsemen’s officials, restricting the number of ship-ins the track is receiving for its race cards.

Barn 4 at the track was placed under quarantine last week after several horses tested positive for strangles, a contagious disease, and were removed from the grounds. The remaining horses in the barn were re-tested on Monday, and three of those horses tested positive, according to Dave Basler, the executive director of the Ohio Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association.

The quarantine of Barn 4 began just after another barn at the track was exiting quarantine because of strangles. The quarantine on that barn was lifted on Tuesday after two rounds of testing on the quarantined horses were negative, Basler said.

In response to the strangles cases, several tracks in close proximity to Mahoning Valley have implemented protocols that prohibit any horses from Mahoning from entering their grounds until the quarantine is lifted, including Turfway Park in Kentucky, Penn National in Pennsylvania, and Charles Town in West Virginia.

Elizabeth Rogers, the vice president of racing at Mahoning, has not responded to requests for comment.

Mahoning has approximately 1,000 horses on the grounds, Basler said.

Basler said that nasal swabs were pulled on the quarantined horses in barn 4 on Wednesday, and the tests are expected back late on Thursday. If those tests are negative, the barn will remain under quarantine for 14 days, at which point nasal swabs will be pulled again and tested. If those tests are also negative, the quarantine will be lifted.

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