California board agrees to collect fees for HISA

The California Horse Racing Board on Thursday became the first racing jurisdiction in the U.S. to agree to collect and remit fees to the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, the new federally overseen regulatory organization that will begin operations on July 1.

The agreement came in the unanimous approval of a motion to take responsibility for remitting the fees provided the state approves the mechanisms to do so. Several other states, including Maryland, New Jersey, and Texas, have said that they will not collect and remit the fees, citing a lack of statutory authority.

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Fees to HISA are calculated through a two-tier structure based on number of gross starts and a weighted share of purses. According to CHRB officials, the total that will be remitted to HISA for the fiscal year starting July 1 is $1.4 million. A spreadsheet distributed by HISA recently to tracks and racing commissions estimated the exact budget contribution from California’s Thoroughbred racing industry to be $1.45 million.

Mike Marten, a spokesman for the CHRB, said that the entirety of the funding will come out of the account-wagering source-market fees shared by Thoroughbred tracks and horsemen. He stressed on Friday that the fees would not be generated by an increase in takeout.

“It’s their money, and they are all doing this voluntarily,” Marten said. “It’s their own revenue. This is not a change in the takeout.”

While HISA’s rules clearly envision state racing commissions remitting and collecting the fees, the rules require racetracks to remit the fees if their commissions decline to do so.

At the Thursday meeting, commissioners also received an update from Scott Cheney, the CHRB’s executive director, on the impact of several HISA rules that will go into effect on July 1, including regulations on the use of the whip in the race.