By Dan Ross

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) board of directors announced Monday an important change to a controversial aspect of the federal program’s enforcement approach.

The HISA board have requested that the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) limit the circumstances under which they issue provisional suspensions. These are the temporary suspensions imposed before a trainer or other allegedly guilty party has had a chance to argue their cause during a formal hearing and relate to cases associated with banned substances.

The announcement states that the HISA board has determined the need for “further analysis and review” on the issue of provisional suspensions “to determine whether any modifications to the current rules are appropriate.”

While this review takes place, the HISA board has requested that HIWU impose provisional suspensions only under the following circumstances:

• When a Covered Person has more than one horse test positive for the same banned substance.
• When a barn search leads to the discovery of the same banned substance for which the Covered Person is being charged under the anti-doping and medication control (ADMC) program.
• When the alleged violation presents a substantial risk to the integrity of racing and/or the welfare of horses.

HISA states how all provisional suspensions “that do not fall within any of these defined categories” will be lifted Monday.

According to HISA, the following trainers will see their provisional suspensions lifted Monday: Mike Pupye, Gerald Butler, Dr. Larry Rickman Overly, Phil Serpe, Christopher Fung and Alvin Taylor

Carlos Lopez, Paul Valery and William Pribble are also currently under provisional suspensions. According to HISA, these three trainers will not have their suspensions lifted.

The lifting of these provisional suspension does not constitute a stay of the charges levelled against the alleged parties, said HISA. “HIWU will be moving forward with these matters under the applicable ADMC Program Rules,” the announcement states.

HISA and HIWU had already stayed the issuance of provisional suspensions in cases concerning Metformin positives.

The board’s request reportedly followed a resolution proposed by HISA’s Horsemen’s Advisory Group, which was also supported by the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association (THA).

Alan Foreman, THA CEO and national ombudsman on behalf of HISA and HIWU, had previously voiced during a TDN Q&A his concerns about the way HIWU issues provisional suspensions.

“As we have articulated to HISA, we believe that provisional suspensions should be limited to the most serious cases involving threats to the integrity of the sport or the health and welfare of the horse, and that provisional suspensions not be issued in cases that do not fit into that category,” Foreman told the TDN back in August.

“We’re only dealing again with banned substances here,” Foreman added. “We’re not dealing with controlled therapeutic substances. But again, unless you’re dealing with the most serious threats to the industry, I think that a trainer should be given the opportunity to defend himself, to have and enjoy all of the privileges of due process that is provided.”

The THA was one of a number of regional and national horsemen’s groups to issue a joint statement on Monday’s announcement.

These groups–which included representative organizations from states like California, Kentucky and Pennsylvania–said they were working with HISA on other potential rule modifications, including a review of the banned substances list to determine if certain substances should be separately categorized, and a possible modification to the banned substance penalty structure to “allow for objective standards to be used in exercising discretion.”

“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 them to fix the new system where it is flawed and make recommendations that will cause improvements. While we have been criticized at times for not appearing to be fighting for our horsemen, nothing could be further from the truth,” their statement read.

“Effecting change is sometimes difficult and time-consuming, but we have been listening and working every day to do so. We are engaged with HISA regularly and can assure you that they, too, are listening and engaging with us in our collective effort to protect our horses and our sport. We believe that is the best course.”