Rep. Paul Tonko

For most of the sport's history the mental well-being of jockeys was not something that anybody talked about or even thought about. But the problem could no longer be ignored when, in 2023, two jockeys, Alex Canchari and Avery Whisman, took their own lives. They were otherwise young and healthy, but the pressures of being a jockey was a burden both, apparently, could not handle. They were not alone. Jockeys' Guild President and CEO Terry Meyocks said that 230 jockeys were surveyed last year and asked about their mental health....

Three federal legislators who were instrumental in getting the Horseracing and Safety Integrity Act (HISA) passed into law in 2020 on Tuesday submitted a "friend of the court" brief to the United States Supreme Court in support of the HISA Authority's application for the stay of an unconstitutionality mandate that is pending but currently administratively stayed out of the Fifth Circuit court of appeals. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who introduced HISA when he served as the Majority Leader, plus Congressmen Andy Barr (R-Kentucky) and Paul Tonko (D-New York), who both...

Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher, along with his wife Tracy, received the Marylou Whitney Award from the New York Race Track Chaplaincy for their continuing devotion and support of the backstretch community at the organization's 16th annual fundraising brunch at the Saratoga National Golf Club, the organization said in a release Wednesday. "I can't say enough about what the New York Race Track Chaplaincy organization does for the backstretch community," Pletcher said. "It provides so much more than spiritual help. I look at it like the mayor's office where...

Edited Press Release The New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) will welcome members of the Organization of Racing Investigators (ORI) to Aqueduct Racetrack for its annual conference, which begins on Mar. 27 and continues through Mar. 30. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, this will mark the first ORI conference since 2020. U.S. Rep. Paul D. Tonko, a co-sponsor of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, will be the keynote speaker of this year's event. Congressman Tonko will be joined by a number of experts and racing executives,...

Witnesses from the Thoroughbred industry who testified Tuesday in Washington, D.C., at a legislative hearing on the Horseracing Integrity Act agreed that the sport is facing an unprecedented equine health crisis. But they were sharply split as to whether the current version of a federal bill mandating an independent anti-doping and medication control program was the best way to keep the industry from slipping into deeper peril. The most cogent argument repeatedly put forth by pro-legislation speakers was that racehorses, unlike human athletes, don't have a say in being administered...