HISA

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority and Oaklawn Park have launched a new pilot program under which a designated area will be available for veterinarians to administer any intra-articular corticosteroid injections at the racetrack during the track's 2023-2024 race season beginning Friday, Dec. 8, HISA said in a press release Wednesday. As HISA laid out in its Strategic Response to recent equine fatalities, many stakeholders, including a significant number of individuals calling into HIWU's confidential tip line, have questioned whether Covered Persons are properly and accurately reporting intra-articular corticosteroid injections....

Turf Paradise received unanimous but conditional approval from the Arizona Racing Commission (AZRC) on Tuesday to conduct a Jan. 29-May 4 race meet. The upcoming season, however, won't be run under the auspices of the new ownership group that has been reportedly trying to buy the Phoenix track for the last two months. Instead, Turf Paradise's current owner, Jerry Simms, will still be at the helm. Simms and Arizona horsemen have had an acrimonious business relationship for the better part of two decades. But Simms vowed during the Dec. 5...

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) has partnered with Palantir Technologies, a leading provider of artificial intelligence systems, to create a data-enabled tool to assist industry stakeholders in identifying horses at risk for injury before they race, according to a press release Tuesday morning from HISA. The tool will generate a daily report for each racetrack, flagging any horses entered in that day's races who may present potential risk factors for injury. This enables identification of at-risk horses with increased efficiency and accuracy and will inform the hands-on pre-race...

Members of the New York Gaming Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to uphold a recommendation from a hearing officer that Forte (Violence) be disqualified from his victory in the 2022 GI Hopeful S. In the Hopeful, Forte tested positive for the prohibited substance meloxicam, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medication. The case has moved slowly since the Sept. 2022 race. It took a eight months for the New York Gaming Commission to make the finding public and when it did the stewards disqualified Forte, fined Pletcher $1,000 and suspended him for ten days....

Every week, the TDN posts a roundup of the relevant Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) related rulings from around the country. Among the key rulings from the last seven days, it appears once again that the rules barring intra-articular injections within seven days of a timed or reported workout are tripping up trainers, with one such case resolved and another three introduced to the "pending rulings" list. NEW HISA/HIWU STEWARDS RULINGS The following rulings were reported on HISA's "rulings" portal and through the HIWU's "pending" and "resolved" cases portals....

The position of New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association (NYTHA) president is up for grabs at a time of great upheaval for horse racing in the state. Belmont Park is poised to undergo a $455-million overhaul, after which Aqueduct is set to close its doors. Within a few years, horse racing in New York will look drastically different to what it looks like today. This is also a period of tremendous existential challenge for the sport, as evidenced by a recent 60 Minutes expose on the industry's doping problems. Among the...

A months-long investigation by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) Authority on a cluster of 13 Thoroughbred fatalities at Laurel Park during this year's winter and spring meets has determined that the deaths could not be attributed to any specific, obvious cause. The Nov. 28 report essentially reached the same no-obvious-fault finding that HISA announced back on Sept. 12 after it completed a separate-and similarly exhaustive-report on the 12 equine fatalities that occurred at Churchill Downs in April and May of 2023. "Based on the evidence and information available...

Following the Federal Trade Commission's approval to add iron dextran to the Banned Substances list under the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority's (HISA) Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Program rules, the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit (HIWU) announced Tuesday that it will use the next 30 days as an educational period to give Covered Persons time to adapt to the new rule. Enforcement of the iron dextran rule will begin December 27, 2023. As a reminder, the use/attempted use, administration/attempted administration, possession, or trafficking of a Banned Substance constitutes an...

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) said that despite not being subject to the Freedom of Information Act, they will release certain data beginning in the first quarter of 2024. The news of their formal data disclosure policy, which includes the routine public release of data collected through its Racetrack Safety (RS) and Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Programs, as well as a process through which individuals may request additional records from HISA, was announced in a press release Monday morning. The release reads: "The Horseracing Integrity and Safety...

After the venerable and influential news show 60 Minutes aired a piece on horse racing last week, people within the industry were understandably upset. The story was ugly, filled with graphic and grisly coverage of horses breaking down, and portrayed racing as a sport where drugs, corruption and horse fatalities had reached the point of being out of control. "Horse racing is an industry where extremely devoted people labor because of one common thing: we all love horses, especially thoroughbred horses," Denali Stud's Craig Bandoroff wrote to 60 Minutes. "That...

All post-race test samples taken from contenders in the 2023 Breeders' Cup World Championships at Santa Anita Park earlier this month have been cleared by the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit (HIWU). 2023 marked the first year the Breeders' Cup World Championships were run under the full jurisdiction of the Horseracing Integrity & Safety Authority (HISA), including the Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Program, which took effect in May of this year and is implemented and enforced by HIWU. As was the case under Breeders' Cup's anti-doping and medication control...