Dear Thoroughbred racing participants,
I want to thank everyone in racing who continues to do their part to promote HISA rule compliance to help advance our sport. HISA is proud of and encouraged by the progress we have made in the first five months of our Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Program, as well as the safety improvements we've seen across the country under U.S. Thoroughbred racing's first-ever uniform regulations.
We continue to make the sport safer for our athletes while also making the rules clearer and more efficient for participants. For example, under the ADMC Program to date, more than 33,000 horses have been tested and we're proud to note that ADMC cases are currently being fully resolved in an average of 59 days from the date of violation. This new system avoids unnecessarily drawn-out litigation while protecting the rights of all involved.
HISA is also particularly grateful to those of you who have submitted constructive feedback and recommendations regarding our safety rules. The HISA team thoroughly reviewed every comment as we developed a series of recently proposed changes to the Racetrack Safety and Enforcement and Registration rules, which were submitted to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for approval last month. Revisions to the Anti-Doping and Medication Control rules will be submitted to the FTC later this month after comments from racing participants on those proposed changes have been fully reviewed and taken into account.
Our goal in submitting these changes is to continue to evolve and improve our effectiveness and efficiency.
As I have said before, the development and nationwide implementation of our rules was and continues to be a massive undertaking, and we acknowledge that there have been some associated growing pains, which HISA's dedicated leadership team and passionate staff have worked hard to minimize. HISA remains focused on doing all we can to improve safety for racing's equine and human athletes, as you'll see detailed throughout this month's newsletter.
Yours in racing, Lisa Lazarus
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