UMN researchers to help study death of Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ST. PAUL, Minn — University of Minnesota researchers will assist in investigating the death of famed Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit, who collapsed and died on the racetrack Monday in Arcadia, California, of a suspected cardiac event.

The horse’s necropsy—the animal equivalent of an autopsy—will be conducted at the University of California, Davis. But samples of hair, blood, and heart tissue are en route to the College of Veterinary Medicine’s (CVM) Equine Genetics and Genomics Laboratory, where scientists studying cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in racehorses will apply their expertise to the overall picture of the 3-year-old colt’s death.

Unlike the breakneck pace for which he was famous in life, the study of Medina Spirit’s death will be slow and methodical. California racing authorities have said there is no timetable for necropsy results but that it could take months. The CVM researchers will release the results of their analysis to the California Horse Racing Board separately, and likely much later. Ultimately, to buttress the necropsy, the researchers hope to determine whether Medina Spirit had specific genetic factors putting him at risk for sudden cardiac death.

The CVM scientists, led by Assistant Professor Sian Durward-Akhurst and Professor Molly McCue, will also incorporate the Medina Spirit samples into an ongoing research project seeking to understand genetic and other risk factors for sudden cardiac death in racehorses. The researchers’ goal is to identify horses at risk for sudden cardiac death—and to put tools into the hands of racetrack veterinarians that will allow them to identify those horses in time to scratch them from a race—in order to prevent future such tragedies. Those tools include an at-rest electrocardiogram (ECG) combined with artificial intelligence to identify horses likely to develop irregular heartbeats during a race—even if their resting ECG looks normal.

“Medina Spirit’s death is devastating, and sadly, such deaths occur all too frequently,” Dr. McCue said. “Our hope is to find ways to pinpoint horses at risk so we can intervene before they lose their lives. In addition to helping equine athletes, this research may also provide answers for sudden cardiac death in young human athletes.”

McCue’s lab has been studying horse genetic disease for nearly two decades. Durward-Akhurst and McCue have been working on sudden cardiac death in racehorses since 2015, when Durward-Akhurst was a PhD student, including creating with their collaborators the largest publicly available comprehensive catalog of equine genetic variation.

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CONTACTS
Sian Durward-Akhurst, assistant professor, Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, [email protected]
Mike Oakes, research communications specialist, University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine, [email protected]