"My definition of a pandemic used to be if one horse got sick, they all got sick. It was an urgent time in the barn. But now this is a whole different time we're living in. It's a crazy world right now and hopefully things get better as the pandemic goes along and we can lessen the curve and get back to racing as soon as possible."
As the harness racing industry in Canada shuts down to the COVID-19 pandemic, many trainers are in a holding pattern with horses that were returning to race. Dave Kelly, the Future Star Award winner at the 2019 O'Brien Awards and one of the leading horsemen at Century Downs, is no exception.
"Now that we're back on a break, many of my racehorses just came off of a break," Kelly told ASHA's Storm Dafoe in a recent interview. "They had a month off, six weeks off and then got trained back, got their fitness levels back to where they should be to race. We're probably going to give them a break again...They don't know the pandemic's going on so they still have to be looked after the same way they would any other day, so we're still in here training every day, jogging every day and making sure these guys are looked after."
To view the full interview, click the play button below.
(Video courtesy ASHA)