A barn at Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course, in Grantville, Pa., was placed under quarantine due to a suspected case of equine herpesvirus (EHV) Friday, but the restrictions were quickly lifted when the animal tested negative.

Chris McErlean, vice president of racing for track owner Penn National Gaming Inc., said tests were performed Jan. 17 on samples from the affected horse. The results were returned later that day and came back negative, he said.

McErlean said the briefly quarantined barn contains about 45 horses with multiple trainers. Horses were permitted to ship in and out of Penn National pending the results of the test.

Although it’s not transmissible to humans, EHV-1 is highly contagious among horses and camelids and is generally passed from horse to horse via aerosol transmission (when affected animals sneeze/cough) and contact with nasal secretions on objects such as feed buckets, grooming supplies, humans, and other infected animals. The disease can cause a variety of ailments in equids, including rhinopneumonitis (a respiratory disease usually found in young horses), abortion in broodmares, and myeloencephalopathy (the neurologic form)