Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act

For 85 years already, surf and turf have been kissing cousins at Del Mar, and Friday anoints the latest rekindling of that summer fling at the SoCal seaside venue. To discuss the meet--which runs through Sept. 11--the TDN sat down with Josh Rubinstein, president of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, who spoke field size, purse bonuses, stabling and a certain high-flying trainee. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity. TDN: Opening day is Friday with a sold-out crowd and an impressive average field size of 11 horses per-race....

by Thomas J. Rooney, President & CEO of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association Edited Press Release Change is never easy, especially change being brought about by the federal government imposing national uniform reforms in an industry long regulated at the state level. I served in the House of Representatives for 10 years, representing 750,000 people from South Florida. I heard day in and day out from my constituents on how we in the government could do things better. This feedback drove the work I did in Congress. Since I started...

A year and a half after being signed into law, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) is expected to kick into action Friday, meaning a new uniform set of medication rules and safety standards that everyone can abide by--that, at least, was the plan. The execution has somewhat thrown those intentions to the wind in the near term, with a piecemeal approach to implementation that has seen the anti-doping and medication control arm of the program pushed back to early next year, and several other features of the law--such...

The states of Louisiana and West Virginia are at the forefront of a new federal lawsuit filed late Wednesday that seeks to block the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) from going into effect when the clock strikes midnight on Friday. The defendants, who consist of the HISA Authority, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and board members and overseers of both entities, have allegedly violated the Fourth, Seventh and Tenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, plus the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which governs the process by which federal agencies...

Four U.S. senators, Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Joni Ernst (R-IA) and John Kennedy (R-LA), sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission and Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority Monday asking for clarification and explanation about HISA's ability to meet its upcoming July 1 implementation deadlines for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA). "The Authority publicly stated in a December 2021 press release that it will not implement the Anti-Doping and Medication Control program by the statutory deadline of July 1, 2022," the letter said. "This deadline is...

With the July 1 implementation date for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act rapidly approaching, there has been a feverish push to get tens of thousands of horsemen and horses registered in time as well as an education effort to get the industry's stakeholders up to speed on the Act's myriad rules and regulations. Tuesday, Lisa Lazarus, the CEO of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority--the governing body tasked with implementing HISA--joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland as the Green Group Guest of the Week to provide updates...

The simmering stand-off between the Texas Racing Commission and the powers behind the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) bubbled higher Monday, when the commission's executive director issued a letter warning Texas will prohibit the import and export of pari-mutuel simulcast signals at its racetracks if the Act goes into effect on July 1 with jurisdictional authority over the state's Thoroughbred racing operations. In the letter, Amy Cook, the Texas Racing Commission's executive director, invokes various statutes in the Interstate Horseracing Act, the Texas Racing Act and the Texas Rules...

This last week has witnessed a flurry of developments and information drops as the countdown to July 1--the official take-off for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA)--continues apace. Just last Friday, for example, HISA representatives fielded questions in an online industry forum, while the law's draft Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) rules have been issued for public comment. HISA's official website can be found here, while the online registration portal can be found here. Aside from providing a cheat sheet to help guide industry participants through the launch, TDN...

A panel covering the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) has been added to the agenda for Track Superintendent Field Day set for June 12-14 at Gulfstream Park. The implementation of HISA is set to take effect on July 1. "We know that HISA is the most important topic in the industry right now, so we worked to put together a panel to address the specific impact on track superintendents," said Roy Smith, founder of the event and track superintendent at Horseshoe Indianapolis. "We are keeping registration open for anyone...

Last week, TDN launched a cheat sheet to help guide industry participants through the launch of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) on July 1. Since then, we have been fielding unanswered questions that industry participants have about the process to register, and about the new playing field come July 1, forwarding them to HISA for response. Over the weekend, HISA CEO Lisa Lazarus addressed a common registration problem bedeviling the system, with HISA's text message verification codes often been misclassified by telecommunications providers as spam. In short: While...

Only those living under rocks would be forgiven ignorance of the July 1 launch of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA). Thanks to HISA's shifting goal posts and sometimes opaque approach to the dissemination of information, however, even those without such domiciles would be forgiven confusion as to what is expected of them between now and takeoff. The following, therefore, is aimed at providing a basic guide to help industry participants navigate the weeks ahead, from the registration process to important new rules that will be in place July...

In an era where trainers are increasingly hesitant to run their horses frequently and/or in races where they might be longshots, Graham Motion is a throwback. It often pays off for his perennially successful outfit, as it did on Saturday at Belmont, when his Highland Chief (Ire) (Gleneagles {Ire}), dismissed at 19-1 in a five-horse field, upset defending champion turf male Yibir (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) and MGISW Gufo (Declaration of War) in the GI Man O' War S. Tuesday, Motion joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland as the...