Del Mar, Calif.

The same doctor-patient confidentiality that keeps medical
records private for humans was the reason offered as to why veterinarian
scratches are not being explained by doctors this week ahead of Breeders’ Cup
2024.

“Obviously it’s public record if there’s a scratch,” said
Churchill Downs equine medical director Dr. Will Farmer, a co-leader of the
veterinary team handling the Breeders’ Cup. “But very similar to human health
records, where there are laws that protect what kind of information can be
given. These medical records are also private information between the attending
veterinarian and the owner through what we call a VCP, the veterinary
patient-client relationship. An owner can certainly do with it what they want,
but from our standpoint, it does mean confidentiality.”

Farmer spoke during a Breeders’ Cup safety briefing with
reporters Wednesday at Del Mar, where 3-year-old filly Ylang Ylang had been
scratched a day earlier from Saturday’s $2 million Filly & Mare Turf. The
Breeders’ Cup never explained why, but her owner subsequently did. Coolmore said
in a statement to Racing Post it was because of a fever only hours after
Ylang Ylang trained in full public view Tuesday morning.

“Ylang Ylang ran a slight fever and didn’t eat up,” the
statement said. “Our vet Vince Baker advised against running her. She never had
a pet scan.”

A 3-year-old filly by Frankel who was bought for more than
$1.8 million at an England yearling auction, Ylang Ylang was a Group 1 winner
at age 2 and was 10-1 on the morning line for the Filly & Mare Turf that
will be run Saturday at Del Mar.

Her trainer Aidan O’Brien already absorbed another vet
scratch across the Pacific on Tuesday when Jan Brueghel, who already had been
flown to the race site in Australia, was ruled out of the Group 1, US$5.2
million Melbourne Cup because of unspecified concerns raised in a PET scan. The
undefeated 3-year-old colt was a futures betting favorite for the race that
will be run Monday night U.S. time at Flemington.

“There was another scan he had to do down there,” O’Brien
told U.K.-based At the Races. “Our vets looked at them and said they were fine,
but Australian vets weren’t happy with them. Rules are rules. Most scans are a
view or an opinion. He did the most rigorous scans he could go through, and he
went through them. He had another scan the last few days. Never trotted better,
moved better. They’re the rules. That’s their decision.”

There was no disagreement about removing Ylang Ylang from
the Breeders’ Cup, though. Just questions about whether the process truly was
as transparent as the betting public might want ahead of seven-figure races
attracting eight- and nine-figure handles.

The question was raised Wednesday about whether
confidentiality should be loosened allow that sort of information to become
public record when there are betting dollars in play.

“It would be difficult,” California Horse Racing Board
executive director Scott Chaney said. “It would certainly require statutory
change. We sort of altered it a little bit when we started doing regulatory
Lasix rather than attending-veterinarian Lasix. I don’t know if you remember
it, but it was a pretty big fight between the veterinary community, the vet-med
board and the CHRB. These days we work a little better in cooperation, but I
think it would probably be unlikely.”

One of the participants who took part in the briefing responded later to a question raised
more than once Wednesday during conversations in the stable area at Del Mar.
Why would anyone think a trainer of O’Brien’s high profile ship an unfit horse
across an ocean and a continent?

“Horses change,” the panelist said. “Sometimes the same day.”