The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority will not be able to enforce its new Anti-Doping and Medication Control program until May 22 under an order issued on Thursday by its federal administrator, the Federal Trade Commission.
The order delays the implementation of a wide-ranging set of policies and protocols by approximately three weeks. HISA had planned to implement the program on May 1, following a judge’s ruling in early April that had delayed the launch of the program until at least that date.
“HISA looks forward to the resumption of the ADMC program on May 22,” HISA said in a statement issued on Thursday.
The delay is the latest setback for HISA, which has faced aggressive pushback from many horsemen’s groups, racing commissions, and an array of like-minded attorneys general. Those groups have filed multiple lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of HISA, with varying degrees of success.
HISA rolled out the Anti-Doping and Medication Control program – which entails policies and protocols for drug testing, drug sampling, out-of-competition testing, adjudications, and penalties – on March 27, the date that the Federal Trade Commission announced its approval of the Anti-Doping and Medication Control rules. But the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association got the rollout blocked four days later when a judge sided with the group in ruling that the rules could not be implemented without a 30-day waiting period.
HISA had pushed the quick rollout in an attempt to get the program up and running in the limited number of states that were holding live racing at the time. The program would have also had a five-week lead-in to the first race of the Triple Crown, the Kentucky Derby, scheduled for May 6.
The FTC ruling said that the May 22 date would “avoid the chaos and confusion that could occur if the anti-doping rule became effective on May 1, during the lead-up to the ‘Triple Crown’ races scheduled during May.” It also said that the delay would “ensure that the horseracing industry has sufficient time to prepare for the anti-doping rule to be effective.”
The first two Triple Crown races are held in Kentucky and Maryland, two states that have been on board with the implementation of HISA’s programs since the authority began enforcing health and safety rules last summer. The third Triple Crown race, the Belmont Stakes, is held in New York, where the New York Racing Association, which operates the state’s three major Thoroughbred tracks, has also been cooperative with the authority’s efforts.
The delay will mean that state racing commissions will remain in control of all the components of their drug-testing programs, including adjudications, through May 21. The Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown, is scheduled for May 20.
When the court ordered the delay in early April, HISA officials said that all adjudications of any positives that occur during the delay period would be handled by state racing commissions until the adjudications are complete. That will remain the case during the new three-week delay, according to Mandy Minger, HISA’s director of communications.
As a result, if a horse tests positive in a race on Derby day or Preakness day, the stewards and racing commissions in Kentucky or Maryland will hear the case, mete out penalties, and handle all appeals, under their existing state rules.
The delay does allow HISA to avoid subjecting the horses in Derby day and Preakness day races to two sets of rules. Both the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and Maryland Racing Commission, in cooperation with racetracks, conduct extensive out-of-competition testing programs for horses entered on Derby day and Preakness day, and they usually pull those samples one month to two weeks prior to a race.
If HISA’s program was rolled out on May 1, then the state rules and penalties on out-of-competition testing would have been applied to out-of-competition samples, while HISA’s rules and penalties would apply to the race-day samples.
