Dr. Mary Scollay Highlights ORI Conference

DR. SCOLLAY HIGHLIGHTS ORI CONFERENCE
by Amanda Duckworth 
    Even another winter storm pounding Lexington on Monday could not stall the presentations on tap for the annual meeting of the Organization of Racing Investigators. National and world leaders in horse racing investigations gathered downtown at the Hyatt Regency to discuss a variety of topics pertaining to integrity in racing. 
Dr. Mary Scollay, the equine medical director for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, took center stage for much of the afternoon. The respected veterinarian covered a wide range of subject matter, including the Equine Mortality Review Panel, medication trends involving compounding and what to be on alert for during veterinarian vehicle searches. 
“This is not the Spanish Inquisition,” Scollay said of the review panel, which conducts interviews with the jockey, trainer and medical care providers of a horse who sustains a catastrophic injury. “When you assume an accusatory pose, you can’t accomplish a goal of transforming behavior. Although this sounds like a really intimidating thing, it has turned out to be most useful.” 
    The goal of the panel is to determine if there were opportunities to prevent the injury or if opportunities for intervention were missed. Scollay also discussed how the occurrence of equine fatalities is higher in North America than elsewhere in the world. Beyond the social impact of this problem, there is a financial issue involved as well. A study that came out of the University of Arizona showed handle in the race after a race marred by a fatal breakdown is affected. 
“When it comes down to it, it always comes down to money,” Scollay said. “Race tracks don’t always recognize that this impacts their handle. They may not have a strong feeling about protecting the horse, but they do have a strong feeling about protecting their income. It is statistically significant that racing fatalities impact handle.” 
   Scollay then took issue with some popular racing adages, including the concepts that horses break down for no reason and race horses today are genetically doomed compared to their counterparts 40 years ago. 
“It is not a bad step, and it is not a hole in the track,” said Scollay. “They all had a musculoskeletal underlying problem. But the key questions are did anybody have a chance to know that horse had a problem and was there an opportunity for a different decision to be made?” 
    While serving on the New York Task Force on Racehorse and Health and Safety, Scollay and her colleagues determined that 50% of the fatalities they examined could have been prevented. 
Two factors that have been identified as significant when it comes to fatal injuries are horses that did not first race until they were older and horses that only had zero to one starts in the previous 30 days. 
“Trainers know more than they let on and need to be held accountable,” Scollay said. “It is not a gene pool issue. I have known Carl Nafzger now for almost 30 years, and I have only taken one horse of his off the racetrack. It happened in the 1980s. She had a condylar fracture, they put it back together and I have seen her foals race. One horse in almost 30 years, and he fishes in the same genetic pond as a lot of the other guys.” 
Earlier in the day Joel Leveson, the director of investigations for the New York State Gaming Commission, discussed in detail what went into the investigation of the Travers S. 
   During the Grade I contest, eventual 3-year-old champion Will Take Charge narrowly defeated Moreno. The second-place finisher’s trainer, Eric Guillot, later filed a complaint with the commission alleging jockey Luis Saez used an electronic device on Will Take Charge during the race. 
The commission used videos and high-resolution photographs, as well as repeated searches of the track and testimony from the race’s participants to determine there was no evidence of such a device. 
The ORI conference continues on Tuesday with presentations from The Jockey Club, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, the New Mexico Racing Commission and the Association of Racing Commissioners International. 
    The ORI itself was established in 1991 with the purpose of addressing the problems of the pari-mutuel racing industry as they relate to the integrity and general health of the sport.