by Frank Angst

In its first meeting since the fatal breakdown of Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1), the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority on Monday voted to form an equine safety and welfare committee.

New Authority Chairman Robert Beck Jr. said the committee would work on issues such as medication, racing surfaces and conditions, jockey safety, horseshoes, and other related matters. As a regulatory committee, Beck said the Kentucky group will work with other industry groups that have gathered safety information and groups currently compiling information.

The Jockey Club and Grayson-Jockey Club Foundation have underwritten two Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summits, where information has been gathered. This month, the Jockey Club formed a Thoroughbred Safety Committee, which includes many industry leaders.

“There is an awful lot of information out there already,” Beck said. “Others have plowed some ground for us. …We’ll see if we need new regulations, different regulations, or different enforcement of current regulations.”

Authority member Dell Hancock, who is serving on the Jockey Club Thoroughbred Safety Committee, said that while that group plans to aggressively push for any measures it adopts, it does not have regulatory power. She hopes the Kentucky committee uses the information gathered by the Jockey Club committee to craft effective regulations. She hopes the two committees work together toward effective policy.

“We have to make this happen,” Hancock said. “I don’t want us to just do something that looks good. I want us to put ideas in place that actually make things safer for our horses. That’s my goal. That should be what we’re working for.”

At Monday’s authority meeting in Lexington, State Veterinarian Lafe Nichols, D.V.M., presented Thoroughbred safety statistics for Kentucky tracks in 2007. He said there were 45 fatal breakdowns in races last year, or 1.9 per 1,000 starts. Nichols said his office has started to separate statistics by surface, for instance listing breakdowns on turf in one category and breakdowns on the main track in another.

Frank Angst is senior writer for Thoroughbred Times