Hoosier Park Quarantine Lifted
After a rather lengthy process, Hoosier Park (Anderson, Indiana) has lifted its strangles quarantine. A quarantine was implemented on September 12th after a horse on the premises began exhibiting signs of strangles. Fifty-four horses were placed under quarantine. When S. equi, the bacterium that causes strangles, was identified in a quarantined horses, officials decided to move all quarantined horses out of the track facility. Presumably, once it was clear that the quarantine was not just a matter of waiting for confirmation that all horses were actually negative, they decided that the risk of having potentially infectious horses living at the track was unacceptable (pretty logical thought process). Now that those horses have been removed and no other cases have been found in the approximately 1000 other horses housed in the other track barns, they are back to business as usual. The quarantined barn is being disinfected and will not be used for the rest of the 2009 racing season.
This incident demonstrated a very aggressive but apparently effective response to strangles. They have presumably ended this latest outbreak and hopefully won't have to deal with it again. However, infectious diseases and outbreaks are inherent risks in the racing industry (as well as other competitive horse industries). The way we manage race horses, moving them around, mixing them, having various (and sometimes minimal) preventive medicine programs, having minimal measures to keep sick horses off the track, and a financial disincentive (i.e. people lose money) to keep horses away, means that infectious disease risks are not going to go away. It's not a question of whether there will be another strangles outbreak on a racetrack. It's a question of when and where.
