(WKYT) – A horse running in the final race at Keeneland on Wednesday had to be euthanized after being injured on the track, marking the first death from a racing incident at Keeneland this year.
Three-year-old High Go fell after bumping into another horse during the final race of the day, according to the track’s safety report. Keeneland says High Go fractured his shoulder, and doctors decided humane euthanasia was the best option.
According to the Equine Injury Database, there have been five or fewer deaths at Keeneland each year going back to 2009, with the exception of 2019, where there were nine.
Keeneland was unavailable for an interview Thursday, but the track says doing what’s best for the horse is central to everything they do.
“We take a comprehensive, proactive approach to safety, with measures in place to support both our equine and human participants across all racing and training activities. This commitment to a culture of safety guides our work every day,” Keeneland told WKYT in a statement.
Testing lab works with Keeneland on safety
Work being done at the Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory in Lexington is helping to keep tracks across the country safe, including Keeneland.
“Keeneland is absolutely one of the nation’s leaders in race track safety,” said Dr. Michael Peterson, executive director of Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory.
Dr. Peterson and his team test tracks across the country and use what they find to monitor the racing surface and make adjustments to improve safety.
“Keeneland, when they put in their dirt track, they helped create the standards that we now use across the country,” Peterson said.
For years, Keeneland has worked alongside Peterson’s team on new innovations and measurements to keep the track more consistent and safer.
“We do a series of tests including ground-penetrating radar, the bio-mechanical surface testing, we check the grades,” Peterson said. “We now have more information, so we can learn over time how we can keep the horses safe, as well as the riders.”
Peterson says one challenge when it comes to track surfaces is short-term changes and measurements that have to be done on-site on a daily basis. For example. Keeneland says they take moisture measurements at 51 locations along their dirt track at the start of every race day.
“We’ve developed and a number of other companies we’re working with are developing tools to make it easier and more accurate for these daily measurements,” Peterson said.
That way, they can get better data on a daily basis to better understand the potential risks to the horses and the jockeys. Peterson says the work to keep both safe never stops.
“We’re good this year, we’ll be better next year,” he said.