Lisa Lazarus

From an altitude of 10,000 feet, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA)'s mandated goal is a simple two-pronged affair. Uniformity in welfare and safety. Uniformity in drug testing. Over the past few months, the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU)--HISA's enforcement arm--has made several announcements that have peeled the curtain back on just how difficult the second part of that equation will be to accomplish. Internal reviews of the six HIWU-contracted laboratories uncovered different limits of detection in blood for diabetes drug Metformin and for benzoylecgonine (BZE), a metabolite...

HISA has launched MedEnt, an app designed to give veterinarians a streamlined process for entering treatments into the HISA portal on mobile devices, the organization said in a release Wednesday. The app reinforces HISA's commitment to working with veterinarians and other stakeholders to improve HISA's processes as well as its focus on leveraging technology to advance equine health. Attending veterinarians can use the app on their smartphones or tablets to access the list of horses under their care, add treatment reports and update protocols. In cases where they are giving...

A trio of law firms will now be available to provide pro-bono legal representation to eligible recipients under the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA)'s newly established program. The program, open to covered persons who fall below a certain income threshold and are alleged to have violated HISA's Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Program, will match recipients with volunteer attorneys who have agreed to provide legal services without any expectation of compensation. The participating lawyers include Howard Jacobs, Jackson Kelly's Equine Group, and Wyatt Tarrant & Combs, LLP. "We are...

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....

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...

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...

The second Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) virtual town hall was conducted Wednesday, giving industry stakeholders the chance to field unanswered questions about the federal anti-doping and medication control (ADMC) program that has been in effect since May. Among the points raised at the meeting: A panel of lawyers has been established to provide pro-bono representation to cash-strapped stakeholders facing possible sanctions. Approximately 42,000 horses have been tested since the launch of the ADMC program nearly six months ago. There have been 11 positive tests for substances of human...

The CBS news program "60 Minutes," which aired Sunday evening included a segment that covered horse racing's worst problems, horses breaking down and dying and the use of performance-enhancing drugs on horses. 60 Minutes often reaches as many as 12 million viewers. The segment was hosted by correspondent Cecilia Vega. Though the program gave ample time to Jockey Club Chairman Stuart Janney III, Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority CEO Lisa Lazarus, Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural, and others who have been working to solve the problems, it left no doubt that...

When two members of Gulfstream Park's security team and a veterinarian descended on his barn on the morning of June 2, the 62-year-old trainer Jeff Poole didn't think he had anything to worry about. According to the Jockey Club's Thoroughbred Regulatory Rulings website, Poole, who has been training since 1989, had never had a violation of any kind. And his recent record--he had won 11 races combined since 2021--hardly suggested that he was a trainer who was taking an edge. Even when investigators found in his office a tube of...

HISA is collaborating with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to apply data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence with the goal of enhancing equine safety by analyzing the factors contributing to injuries, the organization said in a release Wednesday morning. Representatives of HISA and AWS--along with a group of Thoroughbred trainers, veterinarians and industry technologists--met at AWS offices in Nashville last month for an Equine Health Innovation Workshop. The meeting focused on using data and technology to determine which interventions, such as specific changes to HISA's rules or the introduction of...

For the last several days, I have been thinking about the best way to respond to Friday's article by T.D. Thornton about Mr. and Mrs. Pimental. The story was disturbing to read, both because of the human story and the picture it paints of the organization I manage. First, it is impossible to not feel tremendous empathy for what the Pimentals are experiencing. Second, the article implied that HISA and HIWU are devoid of concern for regular horsemen, are looking to wipe out smaller training operations, and are ignorant to...

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...