As you know, Churchill move the rest of
its meet to Ellis Park in Henderson,
KY, along the Ohio River there.
After 12 horse deaths in Louisville,
Focus Investigator John Charlton
is taking us to Ellis Park right
now as he continues his reports.
Tragedies at the track
horses barned at Churchill Downs
are now racing here at Ellis Park.
That means much of the operation has moved
from Louisville to Henderson County.
With much of the staff making
the commute here, including
Churchill's equine medical director,
who unfortunately has a lot of
experience with tragedies at the track.
No just wait, a clear difference
from this track to the other.
It's totally different vibe down here
from the old barns on the backside.
This is more. Laid back in country
to the less grand of a grandstand,
much more of a small county. Fair feeling
This track rural and remote,
but still got the Ellis Park stigma
is clearly different from Churchill
Downs which is a cheaper racetrack,
but the horses are the same.
It's not ideal, but on the other
hand it beats not running.
Current races at Ellis Park would
have been run at Churchill Downs if it
hadn't been for the 12 horse deaths.
The puzzle does continue.
It's a big head scratcher.
The move to move racing,
even though training continues at
Churchill and nothing really has been
found to be wrong with that track.
We have not identified any, you know,
significant issues at all with the surface.
Nothing obviously wrong, Dr.
Will Farmer says.
With the necropsies, as well
as a veterinarian and as a
scientist, I want answers. I'm Dr.
Farmer is Churchill Downs,
his equine medical director. It
has been a very big challenge
for everyone who took
the job after another very challenging
time out West. Did you ever
think you were going to see
this again? Oh no. Santa Anita
201942 horses died at the track.
At the time, Dr.
Farmer was in the middle of it,
working the Southern Circuit
Santa Anita, Los Alamitos, Del Mar
for the California Horse Racing Board. In
the moment we were all very puzzled.
But since then, he says they
eventually put the pieces together.
Weather. Track, surface and and training.
Training to get up to speed is not
as lengthy here as it is out there,
where it's usually another furlong,
longer 5 furlongs as opposed
to four, Dr. Farmer says.
So it's an eighth of a mile longer. Track
surfaces are also different here,
they're built and maintained
to handle the rain.
There, it's supposed to be dry.
In 2019 it was unusually wet.
At Santa Anita.
They had a number of inches of rain for us,
a location that is typically a desert.
At Churchill, however,
it's been pretty dry as well.
Could that be a problem too?
That it hasn't been that wet and we
don't have enough water on the tracks?
We could put thousands of
gallons of water down in a very
short few minutes of time.
Onto the racetrack and obviously
when we go through dryer spells,
we ramp that up. At San Anita,
we we definitely knew was weather impacted.
That is more than likely not
the case at Churchill Down.
So far. What we don't know from Churchill
continues to overshadow what we do know.
Complicating the puzzle
are the inconsistencies,
different circumstances,
different surfaces and spots at the track,
even different leg injuries.
Doctor Farmer says at Saint Anita,
the leg injuries were
overwhelmingly identical,
right down to the same broken bone.
When you have the same a commonality
of injury and location that that
gives you stuff to work off of.
And when you only have one or
two of a specific kind of injury,
it's nearly impossible to to draw
permanent conclusions because
you can't have any repeatability.
We keep digging.
There is an answer.
It's just a matter of how deep
do we have to go to find it.
So Churchill horses keep running
just away and on the road.
Sweet Alyssa. She ran third today,
got beat ahead for second.
It sure is different,
but trainer Neil Pessen will keep
driving the two hours each way.
Okay. Thank you Sir.
As long as there's no
difference in the winnings.
I'm not concerned about
the safety at either track.
Churchill's meet here at Ellis Park
actually ends a day early on July 2nd.
This tracks regular meet starts on July 7th.
At Ellis Park in Henderson County, Kentucky,
I'm John Charlton, WHS 11 on Your side.