All is well at Caymanas Park

Following a mystery virus scare at the nation’s only racehorse track, Caymanas Park, last week, senior Jamaica Racing Commission veterinarian Dr St Aubyn Bartlett says things are ‘back to normal’.

Last week a number horses at the track were refusing feed, while some were down with fever. And although they are yet to uncover the exact cause of the illness Bartlett said everything is returning to normal.

“I think everything has returned to normal. Tomorrow (Wednesday) is a race day and that is a good indication. When we spoke the other day things were beginning to return to normal and all the horses are doing fine now,” he said.

He said he expects a full recovery very soon. “I really expect that everybody will be fully up soon. They (horses) are eating, they had gone off (the track) to eat for a few days, so it (illness) would not have affected them so badly,” he added.However, investigations were still ongoing to determine the cause of the recent outbreak. Meanwhile, Solomon Sharpe, Supreme Venture Racing and Entertainment Limited (SVREL) chairman, agreed yesterday that the situation has improved immensely and he expects it to continue.

“We are running races (Wednesday), the veterinary division has come down and are running their investigations as we speak. But it’s a step at a time, the animals look OK to run races, so most have really improved,” he noted.

Even though there will be a shortfall in the number of available runners today Sharpe said things only promise to get better from here on.

“They postponed the (last) race day and will hold it tomorrow (Wednesday), that was a big impact. We usually get 110 runners but we will have 84 runners over eight races. But the situation has improved, there are more numbers at exercise and based on what we are hearing from most of the barns there was a five-day cycle when the horses weren’t feeling well but most are back to themselves today. Things are looking up,” he said.