LOS ANGELES — After six weeks of safe racing and training, Santa Anita had its second horse death in four days when a first-time starter pulled up during a race on Sunday and was euthanized on Monday. It was the 25th equine death at the Arcadia, Calif., track since Dec. 26.
Spectacular Music was running in a maiden claiming race restricted to California-breds when jockey Jorge Velez pulled the horse up on the backstretch after leaving the gate in the six-furlong contest.
The gelding was vanned off the course and taken to the barns with the hope of saving him after suffering a pelvis injury. However, the extent of the injury was such that it was decided on Monday morning to euthanize the horse.
The gelding was trained by Steve Miyadi and owned by Miyadi and breeder Nadine Anderson.
On Friday, during training, Commander Coil was euthanized after suffering a shoulder-area injury. He was an unraced 3-year-old gelding and was just galloping, much less stressful and not considered risky. The gelding was trained by Marcelo Polanco and owned by Jose Romero.
The Daily Racing Form, citing two track officials who would not speak publicly, reported that Polanco was asked over the weekend to vacate his stalls, where he had five horses. The DRF said Polanco was cited for training a horse on behalf of another person. It’s unknown if this is related to Commander Coil.
The two injuries are similar only in that they are not the most common injuries. Most catastrophic injuries to horses occur in the fetlock or joint area of the leg, not the shoulder area or pelvis.
The track was coming off a period in which it recorded almost 7,000 timed workouts and race starts without serious incident. The track estimates that around 80,000 horses had galloped during that period.
Santa Anita is better equipped to diagnose these types of injuries. The track has a nuclear scintigraphy machine that has examined more than 12,800 horses since it was installed at the track. Santa Anita also announced plans to add a Longmile Positron Emission Tomography Scan machine, called a MILE-PET, to its equine hospital. PET technology has been used on humans for a while, but not horses. The machine will aide in diagnosing fetlock injuries while the horse is standing.