YORK, Pa. — On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Horse Racing Commission announced new measures it will be implementing in hopes of making horse racing safer for both horses and the jockeys on the track.
“It’s a really good starting point for providing much more oversight to the health of the horse and providing some of these programs that will allow veterinarians and the commission and the racetracks to identify horses that might be at a higher risk of suffering a catastrophic injury or injury in general," said Bryan Langlois, a veterinarian in Central PA.
One of the measures include having more veterinarians on the track watching morning workouts.
“This way they can potentially identify horses that may be looking a little sore, may be looking a little injured and then flagging those horses for further scrutiny maybe later in the day," said Langlois.
The commission will also require any horse starting in a race to have a report that will include 30 prior days of veterinary care history.
“All of that information will then go to a panel that’s going to be created to look at all of these factors and see… Is this horse ok to race?" said Langlois.
While advocates and some organizations applaud the new measures, they say there’s still a lot of work left to be done.
“A lot of us have been advocating for them for a long period of time, and it’s really nice of them now kind of formalizing a lot of these rules," said Langlois.
“The fact that there is more work being done to make sure the horses is fit to run is super important. This is just the beginning," said Brian Sanfratello, the executive secretary of the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association.
The new measures also include some limits on use of drugs.