Northfield officials say strangles case under control

Racing officials at Northfield Park report that there have been no further confirmed outbreaks of strangles on its backstretch. To date there have been seven confirmed cases, two of which are already scabbed over and healing.

Greg Keidel, director of racing at Northfield, said the two horses on the mend are still in isolation. “We’re keeping every one of the horses that have tested positive in isolation until at least 15 days after they have recovered; after the vets have released them,” Keidel told harnessracing.com.

A problem Northfield officials have been dealing with is the rumored number of horses that tested positive on PCR tests. But most of them have proven to be false positives.

“At one time we had several dozen of these PCR tests,” Keidel said. “They appear to be the problem. They reverse themselves; they’re different from lab to lab.”

Culture swabs were taken and sent to a lab in Lexington, Ky., “and what we’ve got back is what we believe are to be our final and creditable results,” said Northfield’s chief operating officer Tom Aldrich.

The effect of the disease outbreak was being felt at other locations. Several horses stabled at Northfield were consigned to the Blooded Horse Sale Monday at the Delaware, Ohio, county fairgrounds, but have been scratched. Other horses which were to be shipped to race at tracks such at Buffalo Raceway and The Meadows have been barred from those tracks.

Buffalo Raceway, which begins its 2008 racing season Friday, Feb. 14, has put restrictions on horses coming from Northfield to race.

“I am going to allow horses in here from Northfield if they have been off the grounds at Northfield for a minimum of 14 days and they are given a clean bill of health from a reputable veterinarian,” Buffalo general manager Jim Mango told harnessracing.com. “I have a couple major stables that are there, so I have had to refuse those stables until they are off the grounds for at least two weeks to protect the horsemen here.”

At The Meadows, race secretary Tom Leasure said any horses entered for the weekend who show a race line at Northfield Park within the last month have either been scratched or their entry has not been taken. Five horses already on the grounds at The Meadow who were previously permanently housed at Northfield Park have been asked to leave. Leasure said the horsemen understood the situation and removed the horses from The Meadows stable area.

Lesure also said a plan was being worked on Friday afternoon to deal further with the situation.    

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