CYPRESS, Calif. - The California Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Foundation is providing cash to 200 backstretch employees and 20 trainers affected by the wildfire that struck San Luis Rey Downs in San Diego County on Dec. 7.
At Thursday’s California Horse Racing Board meeting, CTHF executive director Cliff Goodrich said payments were scheduled to be made Friday to help with day-to-day living costs for backstretch employees and operating costs for trainers.
Santa Anita officials are considering adding more stalls at the racetrack in the aftermath of a Dec. 7 wildfire that destroyed eight barns at the San Luis Rey Downs training center in San Diego County, according to Tim Ritvo, chief operating officer of The Stronach Group, the track’s parent company.
Ritvo said Wednesday that Santa Anita would add approximately 500 to 700 stalls to an area north of the racetrack currently used for parking on the most popular racing days.
“Now might be the right time to do it,” Ritvo said in a telephone interview.
Last Thursday afternoon started as a normal late-autumn weekday for Jehobany Catalan Alvarez, the foreman at trainer Peter Miller’s stable at San Luis Rey Downs in Bonsall, Calif. Catalan was overseeing the 77-horse stable, which had already trained for the day and was in a quiet period after lunch.
The next 12 hours may have been the most chaotic in his lifetime, and those of his stable colleagues.
Shortly after noon, a strong wind brought smoke to the northern San Diego County training center. Minutes later, flames were visible outside the property.
CYPRESS, Calif. – Barretts Sales, Los Alamitos Race Course, and the Quarter Horse Benevolent Charitable Foundation announced on Sunday that they will donate to the California Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Foundation to assist victims of the wildfire that struck the San Luis Rey Downs training center in Bonsall, Calif., last Thursday.
CYPRESS, Calif. – The California Horse Racing Board is requiring horses based at San Luis Rey Downs at the time of the devastating wildfire last Thursday to undergo a two-stage respiratory exam before being allowed to race this week.
In a one-page memo released Sunday, racing board veterinarians said attending veterinarians will be required to sign a statement detailing that they have examined the horse in question “and have found no evidence of a respiratory inflammation.”
No-guarantee seasons to two-time Horse of the Year California Chrome and to prominent young sire Uncle Mo will be auctioned off to benefit California wildlife relief efforts, as a number of prominent farms and bloodstock organizations join the industry's efforts to provide assistance to displaced Thoroughbreds and their caretakers.
Coolmore Stud and Mike Repole will auction the season to Uncle Mo to benefit the Thoroughbred Charities of America's Horses First Fund, which is among the outfits stepping in to assist evacuees from the devastated San Luis Rey training center.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The New York racing community is pitching in with relief efforts following the fire that impacted the Southern California racing community at San Luis Rey Downs this week.
The New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association donated $10,000 on behalf of the victims of the fire and has pledged to contribute additional funds, according to a release put out by the organization on Saturday.
The impact of the tragic fire that devastated San Luis Rey Downs on Thursday was starting to be known on Friday, when trainer Scott Hansen – who had 30 horses in training there – reported that half his barn, 15 runners, had perished.
“I basically lost half my barn,” Hansen said. “It’s horrible.”
Mario Rodriguez, a trainer based at Penn National in Pennsylvania, has been suspended 45 days by the track’s stewards for being “neglectful” in providing veterinary care to a horse, according to a ruling from the officials.
Under the terms of the suspension, which will run from Jan. 1 to Feb. 14, Rodriguez also faces having his license revoked if he commits any other “similar offenses.”
The death toll in the San Luis Rey Downs fire in Bonsall, Calif., on Thursday is likely to surpass 40 horses, according to California Horse Racing Board chairman Chuck Winner, who toured the devastated property on Friday morning.
In a phone interview, Winner said the number of horses lost cannot be immediately known because so many runners were taken to different farms in the area, sent to Del Mar, or perished in barn fires at San Luis Rey Downs.
