ARCADIA – The 23rd horse fatality of Santa Anita’s winter meet occurred Sunday during the running of the $100,000 Grade III San Simeon Stakes down the track’s hillside turf course.

Arms Runner, trained by Peter Miller and ridden by Martin Pedroza, injured his right foreleg and fell as the field ran across the main track on the transition from the hillside turf course to the main turf course. The 5-year-old gelded son of Overdriven was vanned off after being tended to by track veterinarians and, according to the stewards, had to be euthanized.

Arms Runner’s fall caused another horse in the field of seven, La Sardane, to go down, but she quickly sprang back up and, according to the Daily Racing Form’s Steve Andersen, suffered only bruises. Her jockey, substitute rider Ruben Fuentes, took off the remainder of his mounts.

The latest catastrophic injury was the sixth on the turf course since the meeting began Dec. 26. Seven of the fatalities have occurred on the main dirt track during afternoon racing and 10 came during morning training. One of the 23 deaths was the result of a heart attack.

The rash of deaths at Santa Anita is the worst on the Southern California circuit since Del Mar’s 2016 summer meet when 17 horses died during its 39-day meet. Nationally, Saratoga in upstate New York lost 19 horses to fatal injuries during its 2017 meet.

Santa Anita officials issued a statement on the latest fatality following Sunday’s nine-race card, in which there were no further issues.

“Arms Runner sustained a fatal injury during the San Simeon Stakes today. He was racing over the 6 1/2-furlong hillside turf course this afternoon when at the dirt crossing he fell and collided with another horse, La Sardane. La Sardane was walked back to her barn under her own power with no reported injuries. Both jockeys, Martin Pedroza, who rode Arms Runner, and Ruben Fuentes, who rode La Sardane, were examined by on-site medical experts and released from First Aid.

“While this incident happened during competition on a track that has been deemed by independent experts to be safe, we are working closely with the California Horse Racing Board to understand if there was anything additional that we could have done to prevent today’s tragedy. Today’s incident speaks to the larger issue of catastrophic injuries in horse racing that The Stronach Group together with our industry stakeholders are working to solve throughout California and across the country.”

Meanwhile, Kathy Guillermo, senior vice president of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, released a statement of her own following Arms Runner’s death:

“Over the past two weeks, thoroughbred owners and trainers and the California Horse Racing Board have argued about medications, whipping, and the public perception of horse racing. But they did not take every measure needed to protect the horses. Both horses ran on the drug Lasix, which is known to cause dehydration and electrolyte loss. All drugs need to be banned entirely, and the known-safest racing surface – a synthetic track – must be used.

“Furthermore, PETA calls on Governor (Gavin) Newsom to urgently form an independent panel to investigate the training and veterinary practices in California racing, including the use of bisphosphonates and other medications that reportedly have been used indiscriminately. If the CHRB does not take every possible action to protect the horses, then racing should not be allowed to continue.”

The latest fatality came on only the third day back for Santa Anita after 26 days without racing. Training was suspended March 5 after Lets Light the Way, a 4-year-old filly trained by Hall of Famer Ronald McAnally, broke down during morning training and became the 21st fatality.

Hours later, Santa Anita announced it was bringing back former track superintendent Dennis Moore as a consultant to work with soil expert Mick Peterson in an attempt to uncover the reason for the spate of deaths. Moore, 69, had resigned before the current meet and his top assistant, Andy LaRocco, was named to replace him.

On March 14, only hours after Princess Lili B, owned and trained by David Bernstein, was injured near the end of a half-mile workout and became the 22nd casualty, Belinda Stronach, president and chairman of Santa Anita’s parent company, The Stronach Group, penned an open letter in which she outlined changes in medication rules and called for the riding crop to be used only “as a corrective safety measure.”

The CHRB voted Thursday to approve Santa Anita’s medication changes, which in part call for a 50 percent reduction in race-day use of the diuretic Lasix, and set in motion the passage of the new whip rule. The latter change could take months to be finalized because of the legal process.