The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority on Monday lifted nearly all the provisional suspensions that licensees who have been charged with violating the authority’s banned-substances rules are currently serving, citing its desire to review the policies requiring the suspensions.
The decision will allow six suspended licensees to return to racing, according to HISA, in some cases months after they were first suspended. Under HISA’s current rules, most licensees who face violations involving banned substances – those that have a high potential to affect the performance of a horse or that have no known scientific basis for being administered to a horse – are required to be suspended until their cases are adjudicated. The same policy does not apply to controlled medications.
In a statement, HISA said that it had ordered the step after determining that “further analysis and review is necessary to determine whether any modifications to the current rules are appropriate.” The policy change was initially proposed by HISA’s Horsemen’s Advisory Group, HISA said, and it was supported by the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Associations, a national trainers’ group that has aligned itself with HISA despite a lack of consensus among its members on support for the authority.
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The decision is a striking about-face for HISA, a relatively new national rule-making and enforcement body whose most ardent backers supported substantial changes to the regulation, enforcement, and adjudication protocols for medication violations practiced by state racing commissions. The imposition of provisional suspensions for banned medications was considered by many supporters to be a cornerstone of a new regulatory era.
Prior to HISA launching its Anti-Medication and Drug Control program in the summer of 2023, nearly all violations of drug rules handled by state racing commissions did not entail an imposition of penalties until the case had gone through at least rudimentary adjudication procedures, and many of those penalties could be stayed on appeal before ever being enforced. Many cases took years to resolve and became targets for critics of the racing industry’s enforcement powers.
In a prepared response to a request for comment, HISA said that the decision reflected its commitment to “monitor and evaluate” the effectiveness of its rules. The HISA statement noted that the average resolution time for its adjudications in 2024 has been 56 days, far below the average resolution time of similar cases previously adjudicated by state racing commissions, and it said that “industry stakeholders,” including horsemen, had pressed for the pause.
“HISA will conduct further analysis and review on this issue to determine whether any modifications to the current rules are appropriate,” the statement said.
Since the ADMC has been launched, the imposition of provisional suspensions has been heavily criticized by many horsemen who say the penalties circumvent commonly held notions of due process and place an undue burden on horsemen who contend that the violations were due to circumstances beyond their control, such as environmental contamination.
The Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, which represents horsemen in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, among several other states, released a statement Monday afternoon that said that HISA’s decision was the result of an ongoing collaborative process between the THA and HISA. The statement also acknowledged ongoing dissent within THA’s ranks.
“It has been our view since the inception of HISA that our best approach for horsemen, and the industry-at-large, is to engage with [HISA] to fix the new system where it is flawed and make recommendations that will cause improvements,” the statement said. “While we have been criticized at times for not appearing to be fighting for our horsemen, nothing could be further from the truth. Effecting change is sometimes difficult and time-consuming, but we have been listening and working every day to do so.”
Eric Hamelback, chief executive officer of the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, said in a prepared statement issued Monday that the decision by HISA was a “much-needed action.” The statement cited the National HBPA’s arguments in suits challenging the constitutionality of HISA, including one case that is expected to be heard by the Supreme Court within the next eight months.
“As the National HBPA told the Federal Trade Commission in August, under the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, horsemen are 'guilty until proven innocent,’ ” Hamelback said. “That is just one of the ways we believe HISA is unconstitutional and not right for horse racing. Today's policy reversal highlights our due diligence in protecting horsemen and horsewomen. While small, this is an important step in restoring horsemen's rights.”
HISA earlier this year acknowledged some of the HBPA’s concerns when it lifted the provisional suspensions for trainers who had been charged with positives for metformin, a common diabetes drug that is banned under HISA’s rules. HISA cited its desire to review the scientific studies involving the drug as a reason to lift the suspensions until it can devise new rules for its regulation.
Late last year, HISA also modified the conditions under which provisional suspensions are automatically imposed to exclude a handful of drugs categorized as “substances of abuse in humans,” including cocaine, methamphetamines, and the psychoactive drug MDMA.
The HISA statement said that it has also recommended that the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit, a private company that enforces HISA’s anti-drug and medication control program, limit the future imposition of provisional suspensions, effective immediately, to cases in which the same trainer has multiple violations for the same banned drug; the banned drug found in the horse was also found in the possession of caretakers of the horse; and in cases in which “the alleged violation presents a substantial risk to the integrity and/or welfare of horses.”
In cases in which provisional suspensions have already been issued that fit those “defined categories,” the suspensions will remain in place, HISA said. Three licensees remain suspended under that protocol, HISA said.
HISA also said that the adjudications of the violations will go ahead under existing rules despite the lifting of the provisional suspensions. However, the licensees affected by the decision to lift the suspensions will be able to return to work while those adjudications proceed.
If HISA decides to alter its policies for imposing provisional suspensions, the process would take months. Under its enabling legislation, rules devised by HISA must be made available for public review before being submitted to its federal overseer, the FTC. Upon FTC submission, the rules are once again required to be posted for a 60-day public comment period before the FTC can issue a decision on whether to accept, reject, or modify the proposed rules.
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