Alex Waldrop, who will retire at year's end as President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA), was honored with the 2021 Clay Puett Award for outstanding contributions to the racing industry during last week's University of Arizona Global Symposium on Racing. The award was established in 1994 and is named after Clay Puett, an Arizona resident whose innovations, including the development of the mechanical starting gate, helped to revolutionize racing around the world.
Under Waldrop's leadership, the NTRA has focused its lobbying on legislation having a direct and material impact on its members and their business activities as they relate to horse racing, breeding and pari-mutuel wagering.
Also during Waldrop's time at the NTRA, after nearly a decade of work on Capitol Hill, the U.S. Treasury Department formally adopted modernized regulations regarding the withholding and reporting of winning pari-mutuel wagers in 2017. The new regulations resulted in dramatically reduced reporting obligations for horseplayers and practically eliminated withholding on winning wagers, allowing horseplayers to retain more of their winnings.
Waldrop also serves as President of NTRA Horse PAC, the Federal Political Action Committee of the NTRA that has raised more than $5 million through voluntary contributions to support political parties and candidates for elective office at the federal level.
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