California horse fatalities similar to 2020
The high-profile death of Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit after a workout at Santa Anita on Monday has led to heightened awareness of fatalities at California racetracks, an issue at the forefront of the sport’s national identity the last three years.
Medina Spirit collapsed after a workout of an internal injury that may have been a heart attack, according to California racing officials. A necropsy will be performed, but the results are not expected until early 2022.
Medina Spirit was the 35th fatality at a state-sanctioned racetrack or training center since the start of the 2021-22 fiscal year on July 1, according to California Horse Racing Board statistics. The figures are very similar to corresponding statistics last year. In the final six months of 2020, there were 36 fatalities statewide.
In the 2020-21 fiscal year that ended June 30, there were 72 fatalities in racing, training, or because of other causes such as illnesses and stable accidents, according to the racing board. The statistics have been on a sharply downward trend in the last decade. There were 265 fatalities in the 2010-11 fiscal year, 144 in 2018-19, and 122 in 2019-2020.
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The figures represent fatalities at racing board-sanctioned facilities and do not include situations in which a horse is stricken at a track and taken to an off-site veterinarian clinic to be treated for injuries or illness.
To reduce fatalities, the racing board and state racetracks enacted a series of safety protocols in the spring of 2019, notably pre-race veterinary inspections, and a reduction in permitted medications, as a result of a series of deaths in racing and training at Santa Anita in early 2019 that made international news.
The death of Medina Spirit was a national news story Monday. Trained by Bob Baffert for Amr Zedan, Medina Spirit’s win in the Kentucky Derby is the subject of ongoing legal action after the colt tested positive for the prohibited raceday medication betamethasone.