Lisa Lazarus

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority has named Jockeys' Guild veteran Jeff Johnston its Rider Safety and Welfare Manager, effective Mar. 17. Johnston will work with jockeys and other riders to ensure compliance with the Racetrack Safety Program, support continuing education programs, provide uniform first responder training, work with providers to improve safety equipment, and increase communication with local medical facilities. Johnston will also closely support the new jockey mental wellness initiative HISA announced this week in partnership with the Jockeys' Guild and will work alongside Dr. Peter Hester, HISA's...

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority and the Jockeys' Guild have launched an industry initiative to provide jockeys and riders with mental wellness support and resources. The organizations will be sending a survey to jockeys and exercise riders relating to their mental wellness needs and will use results of the anonymous survey as a starting point for building a framework to effectively use collective resources to address riders' most important health and safety needs. "HISA is tasked with regulatory oversight for jockey welfare and we are delighted to be working...

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) will begin using "can't-race" flags to enforce its existing Racetrack Safety and Registration regulations beginning on Mar. 27, 2023. Covered Persons and Horses who are not in compliance with HISA's Racetrack Safety and Registration rules, which went into effect on July 1, 2022, will be at risk of being unable to race until they comply with the rules. In order to be in full compliance with the Racetrack Safety and Registration rules: -Covered Persons must ensure that they and their Covered Horses are...

Four weeks out from the anticipated effective date for the Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program (ADMC), the Authority overseeing the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) is stepping up its awareness campaign so industry participants can be properly prepared for a sweeping change in regulatory protocols. "We are officially on the one-month countdown to what we are confident will be the launch of our ADMC program on Mar. 27," Lisa Lazarus, the chief executive officer for the HISA Authority, said during a Monday video press conference. "Everyone is sort of...

Despite HISA court filings claiming everything was legal and pronouncements that the HIWU anti-doping program starts on March 27th, reality needs to set in on the Thoroughbred industry in the same way it does for a young child who comes to realize that the Christmas Eve Santa tracking report may not be true. This week's decision and mandate just issued by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is nothing less than a smack down for HISA. It underscores that the constitutional questions are far from settled and may actually break...

Edited Press Release The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has published the resubmitted Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) rules to the Federal Register, initiating a 14-day public comment period, according to a press release from HISA Friday morning. The FTC now has 60 days to approve or deny the proposed rules. HISA's draft ADMC rules were initially rejected by the FTC in late 2022 due to ongoing legal uncertainties. HISA resubmitted the rules for consideration by the FTC to give the agency more authority over...

As the deadline looms for congress to insert language into the full year-end omnibus spending bill to fix constitutional question marks surrounding the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA), proponents and critics of the law have taken to an epistolary standoff. Last week, trainers Wesley Ward and Larry Rivelli issued a letter through the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA) critiquing various aspects of the national program for "too many flaws, missteps and costs that could have been averted with true inclusion and transparency in its development." Earlier this...

With Congress passing a short-term bill to fund the government for a matter of days, efforts to include in the full-year omnibus spending bill a legislative fix to the constitutional problems dogging the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) is coming down to the crunch, Friday of next week the deadline to pass such a bill before the make-up of Congress changes shape next year. So, where does this all leave HISA? The answer resembles a puzzle box shaken onto the floor, with HISA offering limited direction as to how...

In an order Monday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act's (HISA) anti-doping and medication control (ADMC) program would not go into effect as scheduled Jan. 1 due to swirling legal uncertainty. "The bedrock principle of the Act is the need for uniformity," wrote the FTC in the order, adding that "the Commission's approval of the Anti-Doping and Medication Control proposed rule would not result in uniformity because the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act has been held unconstitutional by a panel of the United...

Lisa Lazarus, the chief executive officer for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA), on Tuesday made an appeal for sport-wide unity with United States racing on the cusp of a Jan. 1 roll-out of HISA's Anti-Doping and Medication Control rules. "I want you to think about what this sort of change is going to mean for the industry," Lazarus said. "It's going to look and feel different, and it's going to allow us to say to those that are our detractors, to those that doubt horse racing is clean,...

Despite a near-term national forecast clouded with uncertainty over last week's United States Court of Appeals order declaring the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) to be unconstitutional, California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) commissioners on Tuesday expressed confidence their state will be able to weather the projected turbulence over HISA's in-limbo legality better than other jurisdictions. The reason, according to staffers and commissioners who spoke during the Nov. 22 monthly meeting, is that the CHRB has been proactively advancing safety and medication rules for the past few years, and a...

For well over a year, we have been told that the HISA Act was legally bulletproof and within the parameters of the US Constitution. According to a unanimous decision of a three judge panel from both political parties issued last week, such assertions may not be so. The ARCI has not taken sides in this legal dispute, although some of our member agencies have as there are serious issues involving States rights, taxation without representation and commandeering that are at stake. The final outcome of the legal process may not...