By Bill Finley
The National HBPA and its affiliates got their wish Friday. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) is unconstitutional. As a result, HISA is on life support and very well could be finished. Within hours of the decision being announced, the National HBPA was taking a victory lap, declaring that this was a win for horsemen across the country.
“Today's ruling shows the HISA regulations are not in the best interest of thoroughbred racing's participants and, as Judge Doughty noted, will cause harm to the participants,” National HBPA CEO Eric Hambelback said in a statement.
That's what Hamelback and anti-HISA forces have been saying all along, while never really clarifying what potential harm would be caused by HISA. They fail to acknowledge that horse racing has a serious integrity problem and the cheaters are winning. HISA is designed not to hurt horsemen, but to rid the sport of its worst actors and in the process protect the overwhelming majority of owners and trainers who play by the rules.
Have we learned nothing from the FBI investigation and the subsequent arrests of Jorge Navarro, Jason Servis and more than two dozen others? According to the indictments, Servis and Navarro gave virtually every horse in their barns performance-enhancing drugs and did so for years. They won with 30% of their starters not because they were superior horsemen but because they, allegedly, had potent drugs at their disposal.
Servis and Navarro operated under a system where state racing commissions were in charge. They were never caught and never were going to be. It's been proven that the racing commissions do an inadequate job and are helpless to catch the bad guys. That's because with most, the primary tool at their disposal is post-race drug tests. The same tests that never come up with anything more serious than overages of therapeutic medications. With hundreds of undetectable drugs available, it's far too easy to beat the system. Yet, the National HBPA is essentially saying they are fine with the status quo.
HISA was set to replace the old system with a new one under the watch of the Horse Racing Integrity and Welfare Unit, which was going to go well beyond drug testing and have some actual teeth. The plan includes working with 5 Stones Intelligence, which played a large role in the investigation that caught Servis and Navarro.
“The Horse Racing Integrity and Welfare Unit is also building their own internal capability, their own internal investigations team, which is very strong and is going to include some well-known and well-established faces,” HISA CEO Lisa Lazarus said. “I think probably why you ask the question, and it really resonates with me, is that you want to know if the new program is going to be very much intelligence and investigations based. It's not going to be based solely on conducting a whole lot of tests. If you look at all the top-end programs in the world, equine and otherwise, you'll see that the successful ones that really deliver integrity to their sports rely heavily on investigations. That's great. What 5 Stones has uncovered over the past couple of years has really changed this industry for the better. They truly have. They have certainly done a terrific job and we're lucky to have them as part of the sport.”
If HISA can't find a way to reverse the decision that declared it unconstitutional, we will go back to the old way of doing things, with state racing commissions leading the way while failing to do job of adequately policing the sport.
HISA was never going to wipe out all cheating in the sport, but it represented a huge step in the right direction and was sure to make it a lot tougher to break the rules. HISA was going to look out for the same people, HBPA members, who were robbed of purse money every time Jorge Navarro won a race, cheating hundreds of owners and trainers. Who's looking out for them now?
“It is the duty of the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association to protect horsemen across the country and that is not a responsibility I take lightly,” Hamelback said after the court decision.
He's right. But that means doing everything possible to ensure there is a level playing field and that HBPA members who play by the rules are never at a competitive disadvantage. That should be priority No. 1. If the National HBPA truly wanted to “protect horsemen across the country” then it would be backing HISA, not trying to undermine it.
Why Flightline Has My Horse of the Year Vote
Turf writer Gary West sent in a blistering letter to the editor to the TDN last week in which he wrote that he would not vote for Flightline (Tapit) for Horse of the Year because he did not want to reward his owners after they had retired him after just six career starts.
He wrote: “Whenever owners yield to avarice and whenever they focus on the sales ring rather than the racetrack, the sport shrinks a little more. And horse racing will continue to shrink into insignificance if its leaders, or so-called leaders, will not sacrifice their personal interests for the sport's good. That's why I cannot and will not vote for Flightline.”
West makes a valid point and the rush to retire racing's stars is bad for the sport. That means you can be unhappy with the ownership group but not that you should penalize the horse.
Though he raced just three times during the year, Flightline's accomplishments embody what it means to be the Horse of the Year. He was brilliant and dominating and he captivated the sport like no horse has done since Secretariat. As most would have done if they were in the same position, the owners opted to cash in on the millions coming their way from a stallion career. That's a shame but it is also the reality of what horse racing has become in the modern era. And it takes nothing away from what Flightline accomplished. He will be a very deserving Horse of the Year.
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