LOS ANGELES _ The mystery surrounding the 21 horse deaths at Santa Anita Park since Dec. 26 came no closer to being solved on Wednesday as rain moved into the area, hampering the testing of the track surface.
On Tuesday, Santa Anita took the unprecedented step of suspending racing indefinitely, which at this point means at least through the weekend.
Dr. Rick Arthur, the chief equine veterinarian for the California Horse Racing Board and the University of California, Davis, said that after looking for common traits among the 21 fatalities, he couldn't find anything that stood out.
"They are all over the place, from Battle of Midway, a well-seasoned horse, to a first-time starter," Arthur said. "They are from 17 different trainers. There is nothing that links them together."
Arthur has been studying the necropsy reports of all the thoroughbreds that have died. Many are still in progress and can take up to a couple months before all the tests are back.
"It's way, way too early to make any conclusions," Arthur said. "We need to spend a lot of time and work to collate them and put them all together. Comparing and contrasting race records and training records also takes some time."
Arthur said that the necropsies could ultimately fail to pinpoint a cause for the breakdowns at the Arcadia racetrack.
"If you expect a definitive answer, I wouldn't expect that," Arthur said. "We can hope that it identifies strategies that can make racing safer. It's not just the track. It's not just the horse. It's the whole schedule, the training program, the racing program. Everything."
