USADA

Draft rules for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) were unveiled Thursday morning, broad details of which can be read here. As expected, these draft rules aren't full and comprehensive, and are subject to revision. Nevertheless, as currently written, they signify a fundamental revision to the way the industry is policed, including a markedly more stringent approach to medication violations. To discuss these rules, the TDN sat down Wednesday afternoon with United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart and Dr. Tessa Muir, head of the agency's equine program....

To coincide with the release of its anti-doping guidelines for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's CEO Travis Tygart and Equine Program Director Tessa Muir joined the TDN Writers' Room

The attorneys general from six new states have sided with existing plaintiffs in Oklahoma, West Virginia and Louisiana by filing a Sept. 21 "friend of the court" brief in one of two currently active federal lawsuits aiming to get the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) voided for alleged constitutional violations before HISA even goes into effect. Curiously, two of those six states--Alaska and Mississippi--have no current forms of legal pari-mutuel horse racing. The other states expressing support for the alleged unconstitutionality of HISA are Arkansas, Idaho, Nebraska and Ohio....

Last month, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced that in Dr. Tessa Muir, it had plucked from foreign shores a new hire to head its equine program at a time when the agency plays an integral role in implementing the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA), overhauling the industry's governing status quo. Before Muir joined the USADA staff roster, she had hopscotched her way up the industry ladder, from exercise rider to private veterinarian to head of the British Horseracing Authority (BHA)'s anti-doping program between 2013 and 2019. Her...

There's plenty to talk about in racing these days, and NTRA CEO Alex Waldrop joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland Wednesday morning to dig into a good deal of the sport's most pressing topics. Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Waldrop talked about how to capitalize and sustain the positive handle trends of the past year, how to pay for the groundbreaking Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, what movement he expects on H-2B visas with a new administration and more. "Looking back...

Not too long ago, Lance Armstrong was revered as an American hero. The winner of seven straight Tour de France titles, Armstrong brought the sport of cycling into the mainstream and the story of his unprecedented success after recovering from testicular cancer inspired athletes everywhere. But, as the public later found out, it was all built on a lie. Armstrong was a cheater, and his extensive involvement in an explosive doping scandal tarnished his legacy forever, stripping him of nearly all of his fraudulently-gained athletic accomplishments. The revelations from that...

This week on the TDN Writers' Room, USADA's CEO Travis Tygart joins to explain how his anti-doping team will clean up racing.

by Thoroughbred Idea Foundation The creation of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) is the most significant development in American racing at the federal level since the passage of the Interstate Horseracing Act in 1978. Questions now being rightly considered include how much HISA will cost and where will its funding originate from. Below, we offer some perspective on the costs. But as the greater industry determines where the funding will come from over time, racing should proactively adopt policies which seek to grow the wagering business. The industry...

Backed by the political clout of United States Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), proponents of a federal bill mandating an independent anti-doping and medication control program for horse racing announced at an Aug. 31 press conference at Keeneland that a retooled version of the framework of legislation that has existed since 2015 will be introduced in the Senate in September by McConnell himself. Backers of the bill spoke Monday of newfound compromise and consensus among the sport's stakeholders that they said would help to usher the Horseracing Integrity and...

As a New Jersey-based owner, the FBI indictments of 27 people including Monmouth Park leading trainers Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro resonated particularly strongly with me. I put together my first racing partnership in 1981, as a teenager in love with the horses and the sport. As is the case in any endeavor involving people and money, there have always been and will always be those who attempt to come out ahead by dishonest means. The difference between thoroughbred racing and other sports - businesses, is that our industry has...

The FBI and the Department of Justice have done what the horse racing industry had failed to do for decades. They caught and are prosecuting high-profile trainers for doping infractions as part of an investigation that has finally torn the lid off of what had been the shadowy and secretive world inhabited by racing's cheaters. The entire industry owes a debt of gratitude to these agencies. The problem is, it's not the FBI's job to clean up horse racing. It has more important matters to deal with. There may be...

In a wide-ranging discussion that covers the whip, horsemen's groups, USADA and more, Terry Finley stops in to Patty Wolfe's Orlando studios to be the first guest on Thoroughbred People, the TDN's new podcast series. Listen to the stream here or subscribe to our podcast app on Apple podcasts.