The Daily Racing Form and This is Horse Racing are reporting (here and here) that a sick horse at the Fair Hill Training Center in northern Maryland may have equine herpesvirus (EHV-1).
As a result, the Maryland Jockey Club, which is running at Laurel Park during the winter, has prohibited Fair Hill-based runners from entering races at Laurel. That, however, is the only track to take such an action; other regional tracks continue to take entries from the center, which houses some of the most prominent trainers in the game.
Officials there have isolated the sick horse, as well as the other horses in that barn, from the rest of the population. That, they believe, should be sufficient, since, unlike a racetrack, Fair Hill’s training barns are widely dispersed over a 300-acre area. The typical 21-day isolation period is expected to run through January 23.
