Electronic Therapeutic Treatment Leads To Necker Island Scratch From Kentucky Downs Stakes, $500 Fine For Trainer – Horse Racing News

|09.16.202209.16.2022|5:37pm5:50pm

Necker Island at Churchill Downs

Trainer Chris Hartman has been fined $500 for violating a Kentucky Horse Racing Commission regulation prohibiting electronic therapeutic treatments on horses within 24 hours of a race.

The Sept. 14 ruling states that Necker Island, a 5-year-old multiple stakes-winning son of Hard Spun who contested the 2020 Kentucky Derby, was treated with a portable handheld massager inside the 24-hour window for the ninth race at Kentucky Downs in Franklin, Ky., on Sept. 10.

Necker Island was scratched from the race, the Grade 2, $1 million FanDuel Turf Sprint Stakes. The horse has been re-entered on Sept. 17 at Churchill Downs in the $275,000 Louisville Thoroughbred Society Stakes, where he is the 5-2 second choice in the morning line. Necker Island races for The Scherr Boys.

The treatment is in violation of 810 KAR 8:010 Section 3 (7) which states: “Electronic therapeutic treatments, other than nebulization, shall not be administered to a horse within 24 hours prior to post time of a race in which the horse is entered.”

In addition to the Kentucky regulation, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority’s Rule 2271, Section F (Prohibited Practices), prohibits “use of electrical medical therapeutic devices including magnetic wave therapy, laser, electro-magnetic blankets, boots, electro-shock, or any other electrical devices that may produce an analgesic effect within 48 hours of a training activity or of the start of the published post time for which a horse is scheduled to race.”

Contacted by telephone, Hartman declined to comment, stating that the stewards ruling was sufficient in explaining what happened.

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