Stead hired for new position with Churchill Downs Inc.

Dr. Dana Stead, who resigned last year from the position of track veterinarian for tracks on the Southern California circuit, has been hired by Churchill Downs Inc. to the new position of Equine Safety and Integrity Veterinarian, Churchill announced on Wednesday.

Stead will work alongside Dr. William Farmer, Churchill’s equine medical director, in “fulfilling a core commitment to equine safety” at Churchill’s Thoroughbred and Standardbred tracks, Churchill said. He will begin in his position on Feb. 5, Churchill said.

Last year, a rash of horses suffered fatalities at Churchill’s spring meet, leading the track to cancel the last month of the meet and move racing to another one of its properties, Ellis Park. The deaths, which were clustered in the ten days prior to the Derby, drew nationwide attention.

Stead was the track veterinarian at Santa Anita and Del Mar for 14 years, and he has been a member of the Breeders’ Cup veterinary team for 14 of the event’s last 15 runnings.

In his resignation letter last year, Stead was outspoken about the challenges facing veterinarians in California. The letter cited “frivolous litigation” and seeing “my esteemed colleagues be labeled criminals by the profession we serve.” In California over the past several years, the state’s veterinary board has brought allegations of misconduct against several equine practitioners, charges that the state’s horseracing veterinary community has rejected wholesale.

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