They’re calling it the “monster” rule.
The New Mexico Racing Commission has adopted an emergency rule that suspends horses from competition for a minimum of 60 days if they test positive for substances in five different categories. The rule went into effect late Wednesday, executive director Izzy Trejo said.
“It’s a monster rule in that it takes care of multiple issues we’re facing in racing, with just this one rule,” Trejo said.
A quarantine at Arapahoe Park has been lifted, the Colorado Department of Agriculture announced. The track had been on lockdown after a mare in its stable area tested positive for Equine Infectious Anemia. The quarantine, which did not keep Arapahoe from racing, was imposed last Thursday and was lifted Tuesday.
Chuck Borell, the central figure in the case involving 43 abandoned horses on a farm in Mercer County, Ky., was arrested by county sheriffs late Wednesday morning when he showed up at the farm. The charges of abandonment were brought by the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, since the violations are of a state law, and the enforcement is on the local level.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Jockey Patrick Valenzuela, who has not ridden since late February in Louisiana, is hoping to ride in California in July for the first time since early 2014 if he is granted a license by the California Horse Racing Board.
Valenzuela has an exercise rider’s license in California and was in the stables at Santa Anita last weekend, soliciting mounts for the upcoming Del Mar summer season.
Paco Lopez had a huge week at Monmouth Park, winning with 13 of his 26 mounts, and was voted Jockey of the Week by the Jockeys’ Guild.
Lopez, who now has 49 wins at the meet and leads the standings by 29, won two races at Monmouth on Friday. He came back to win five races Saturday and six on Sunday.
Lopez, 29, is shooting for his fifth Monmouth title and his fourth in a row. He was the Eclipse Award-winning apprentice rider of 2008.
Average daily handle was up at this year’s Pimlico meet, which consisted of 28 racing days, nine fewer than in 2015.
Handle was up on both the Black-Eyed Susan and Preakness cards, the key days of the meet. All-sources handle on Black-Eyed Susan Day was $19.4 million, compared with $17.7 million a year ago. Preakness Day handle was $94.9 million, a 10.5 percent increase from 2015.
Last year’s daily average handle at the Pimlico meet was $5.16 million.
The Jockey Club held its seventh Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit at Keeneland on Tuesday, and once again it offered some sound advice for trainers, some good information for owners and breeders, plus statistics on how racing is safer today than ever before, in part due to developments from previous editions of the conference. The one-day conference attracted some 200 people to Lexington, and was simulcast online. The event covered a variety of topics that included safety of racing surfaces, nutrition, racing regulations, medications, biosecurity, and equine health.
Kentucky Agriculture Department officials met with Mercer County officials Monday to look at 43 abandoned Thoroughbreds to evaluate their condition in a case involving horses that had been in the care of or owned by Chuck Borell and his daughter Maria Borell.
Rusty Ford, spokesman for office of the Kentucky State Veterinarian, a division of the Agriculture Department, said a team of veterinarians looked at the horses on a farm in Mercer County, some 30 miles southwest of Lexington, and reported that the vast majority are now in good condition.
Another high-profile case of horses being abandoned and in poor condition has surfaced in Kentucky, and this one has an even higher profile because one of the persons involved is Maria Borell, who trained Runhappy to win last year’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Maria and her father, Chuck Borell, are the reported owners of the horses, though there are conflicting statements as to who actually owns the horses.
