Parx Racing Quarantine Lifted, Abiding Star To Preakness

The equine herpes nightmare at Parx Racing is finally coming to an end. On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture lifted the quarantine following negative tests of all horses in Barn #30 and the track isolation area. These horses were tested Monday. All told, seven horses came down with equine herpes with four dying from the disease. Effective immediately, horses can ship in and out of Parx Racing which means that trainer Ned Allard and owner Gil Campbell will be able to run Abiding Star in Saturday’s Preakness and Always Sunshine in the Grade 3 Maryland Sprint on the Preakness undercard.

In advance of the end of the Parx quarantine, Pimlico has put special procedures in effect to protect the resident horse population. All Preakness entrants must be on the Pimlico grounds by noon Thursday. At this point, the two Allard horses are the only ones shipping in for Saturday’s card. His horses will be segregated from the general horse population and will stay in a temporary two-stall barn. Abiding Star and Always Sunshine will train at 5 AM on Friday and Saturday before other horses are allowed on the track. Note that these special protocols apply only to Preakness runners (which doesn’t explain why Always Sunshine falls under this criteria). Horses shipping in from Parx for other races on the Friday and Saturday card must ship in and out on the day of their race.

Quite a few Parx horses will be shipping in for Friday’s Black Eyed Susan day card. These horses include Disco Chick, Joint Return, Wolfie, Lady Forest and Previous Honor.

The end of the quarantine should obviously benefit Parx Racing now that horses can ship in to the facility. According to Director of Racing Sam Elliott: “Now that the quarantine is over, I expect our entries to improve. We’ll have some horses shipping in, which will help our program.” It’ll also help things at Monmouth Park. Monmouth Director of Racing says that 100 to 150 horses that have been assigned stalls at his facility were unable to leave Parx due to the quarantine.

Parx Racing kept running live events during the quarantine though it was becoming more and more difficult to fill the fields.