By Brittlan Wall
In a recent OP/Ed feedback penned by Carrie Brogden (12-28 TDN), the burning question of why there isn't an entity to uniformly govern and streamline processes in the Thoroughbred industry was brought up once again. Many owners, breeders and trainers have already called for uniformity across multiple aspects of the business, from medication regulation to the standardization of racing rules. At this point, the formation of a regulatory racing body is nothing but an idea – but it is an idea that has garnered a plethora of outspoken support in recent years. Though the Thoroughbred industry may not have a national regulatory body at this point in time, it does have a national organization that tackles a major part of the business that, as Carrie suggested, can be a major roadblock for horse owners – licensing.
Enter the National Racing Compact.
Formed in the early part of 2000, the National Racing Compact is an independent and interstate governmental entity that seeks to relieve the licensing burdens of people who race horses across multiple jurisdictions. The National Racing Compact, authorized by both by the states and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, sets the standards for individual licenses, accepts applications and fingerprints and in the end, has the power to issue nationally recognized licenses that have reciprocity among other states. Not only can owners use the National Racing Compact to become licensed, but trainers and jockeys with more than 100 lifetime starts can use them for their licensing needs as well.
“The way our program works is the applicants complete one license form, give one set of fingerprints and pay the $225 national licensing fee,” articulated Patrick Thompson, Executive Director of the National Racing Compact. “That gets licensees three years of our service, and they never have to be fingerprinted again. They are still responsible for all of the additional state license fees but once we have an application, a set of fingerprints and the applicant has been approved for a license, all they have to do is call us and pay the license fee for whichever state they need to be licensed in. We handle the rest.”
The organization also has a comprehensive license fee list for each state, should owners want to go ahead and pay for a license in the states they already know they are going to race in. The National Racing Compact includes all the major racing jurisdictions in the United States and is currently comprised of 15 member states and 10 additional participating states. The difference between a member state and a participating state is not something that has any effect on the owner applying for a license.
“The difference to the owner between a member state and participating jurisdiction is usually nothing,” explained Thompson. “Most of our owners don't even know which ones are members or just participants because we handle all the leg work. Member states will license anybody that has a National Racing Compact license because we have a stricter set of criteria. We've taken the strictest aspects of each of those member states and made that our criteria, so they'll accept that licensee once they are licensed with the National Racing Compact. Participating jurisdictions have the option to review licensees and make their own decisions, but I've been here for 10 years and if an owner qualifies for a national racing license, they usually qualify in those states too.”
Though most racing jurisdictions participate in some level of the National Racing Compact, there are still a select few that haven't joined yet. New Mexico and Minnesota are the two states that Thompson occasionally gets requests for and as it stands, those are the two states that owners would still have to go through the regular, separate licensing process. Even if a particular state doesn't participate in the National Racing Compact however, Thompson said he and his team still assist their licensees in getting whatever documents they need.
“We don't take anything away from the racing commissions, but we know what the commission needs and what they need to have from their licensees, so we are good at mediating situations of that nature.”
When asked about the goals for the National Racing Compact going into 2016, Thompson reflected candidly about fundamental reason why the organization exists and their plans to raise awareness of their services.
“We exist for the benefit of the horsemen,” expressed Thompson. “We don't exist for profit. Making it available to more individuals is a goal we have been trying to work towards. We have a live-scan fingerprint machine so customers can come here and get fingerprinted at our office. We've also started going to sales with the fingerprint machine, where people can get them done right on the spot and it takes five minutes. We'll travel to some sales again in 2016 as well. The goal right now is to make it available to more people and try to get more people aware of it.”
“We have over 2,100 members as it stands right now, and our first priority is our licensees. We make sure that anything that pops up is taken care of right away. We also keep up with our licensees' expiration dates and send them a letter every October to let them know what's coming up for renewal. All they would have to do is call us, tell us to renew the licenses and we take care of it. It's a good program – it really is.”
For licensing questions or more information on the National Racing Compact, please contact Patrick Thompson, Executive Director. Email: pthompson@arci.com or phone: (859) 224-0584
-@BrittlanWall
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