Parx has no room for any more shippers

The backstretch at Parx Racing, under quarantine since last Friday, has been closed to ship-ins because there are no more stalls available, according to Sam Elliott, the track’s director of racing.

Parx put in place a policy that prevented horses from leaving the track on Oct. 3 after a horse tested positive for equine herpesvirus, a highly contagious disease. The policy allowed horses to ship in to the track as long as they did not ship out until the quarantine was lifted, and horses continued to enter the backstretch throughout last weekend despite the quarantine, Elliott said.

“I’ve got no more room to put them anywhere,” Elliott said on Thursday. “I was happy to do this, but we’ve got no more space.”

Parx has stalls for approximately 1,400 horses, Elliott said. The quarantine was put in place at a time when Parx was averaging $500,000 a day in purse distribution through a new schedule it implemented this year, doubling its purses from late August through Oct. 20. The schedule has been reworked because of the quarantine.

Also on Thursday, a horse was removed from the grounds at Parx after exhibiting symptoms of neurological distress, which can be indicative of equine herpesvirus, Elliott said. The horse, who was housed in barn 32, had displayed the symptoms for several weeks, but was removed from the grounds as a precaution for testing. The tests on the horse were negative late Thursday afternoon, and the quarantine on the barn was lifted, Elliott said.

The current quarantine of the backstretch will not be lifted until Oct. 29 at the earliest. If other horses test positive for the disease, the quarantine could be extended.

The horse that first tested positive is not on the grounds. That horse, a 2-year-old filly, did not test positive for the disease until she was removed from Parx and sent to a nearby equine clinic after running badly in a race and subsequently exhibiting signs of sickness.

Parx is the home of Favorite Tale, who secured an automatic berth in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint by winning the Smile Sprint earlier this year at Gulfstream Park. Officials are currently attempting to work out a way to allow the horse to participate in the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., on Oct. 30-31, but house regulations requiring horses to be on the grounds of the host track three days prior to the event are complicating the plan.