by Betty Holt, executive director, the Harness Horse Breeders of New York State

Latham, NY — We have received a large volume of calls concerning the health issue at Vernon Downs.

The Harness Horse Breeders of New York State are working with the Agriculture and New York State Horse Breeding Development Fund to find the best solution for the New York Sire Stakes program.

There will be no NYSS events in the month of May.

Efforts are being made to reschedule all the NYSS events in the 28 day quarantine window.

The shipping of horses into the quarantined locations is problematic; but the shipping of NYSS eligible horses out to race is of more immediate concern.

The horse owners paid into the program and we want to give them every opportunity to race their horses.

Naturally, HHBNYS wants to protect the health of all NYSS eligible horses and we feel that delaying the start of the NYSS season will help us achieve that goal.

We hope to have a revised schedule approved by the Agriculture and NYS Horse Breeding Development Fund very soon.

Please pass this information along to all horsemen. We will post a revised schedule on the www.nysirestakes.com and www.hhbnys.com websites when we have more news.

We understand the confusion and are trying to acquire a solution as quickly as possible.