HISA considering expanding 'covered horses' to include 2-year-old sale workers

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority is exploring whether to expand its definition of a “covered horse” to include horses that have made timed workouts at 2-year-old sales, Liza Lazarus, HISA’s chief executive, said during a town hall-style teleconference Monday.

An expansion of the definition would extend HISA’s jurisdiction into the juvenile sales arena for the first time. Currently, HISA’s jurisdiction is limited to horses “beginning on the date of the horse’s first timed and reported workout at a racetrack that participates in covered horse races or at a training facility,” according to the language used in HISA’s enabling legislation.

A HISA spokeswoman said after the meeting Monday night that the option being explored by the organization would shoe-horn 2-year-old in training sales into the legislation’s current definitions, rather than seeking an amendment to the enabling legislation that would specifically refer to sales grounds. The term “training facility” is defined in the legislation as "a location that is not a racetrack licensed by a state racing commission that operates primarily to house covered horses and conduct official timed workouts.”

HISA has so far interpreted the language to mean any workout recorded by Equibase, Lazarus said during the teleconference. Equibase does not record workouts at 2-year-old sales.

Lazarus said that HISA began exploring the option of the expanded definition earlier this year, in the aftermath of a case in which HISA dropped a charge of a banned-substance violation against a trainer when advanced testing determined that the horse had been administered the drug early in its 2-year-old year. The horse was sold at a 2-year-old sale.

Lazarus cited HISA’s discussions about changing the definition in answer to a direct question about the expanded definition from a participant in the town hall teleconference. Some horsemen have clamored for HISA to apply its drug policies to 2-year-old sales due to the perception that the horses are being administered substances that are banned or regulated by HISA due to a lack of oversight at the sales.

In late March, the three dominant U.S. sales companies announced new protocols that are designed to enhance their oversight of medications, but those protocols are voluntary.

The town hall videoconference was held on the same day that a batch of new HISA rules are going into effect. The new rules were approved by HISA’s overseer, the FTC, early last month, and HISA has held a number of seminars with horsemen and veterinarians since then in an attempt to educate racing participants on the impact of the new regulations.

The new rules include expanded restrictions on the use of intra-articular injections of corticosteroids; new regulations for voided claims; new prohibitions on certain types of treatments akin to pin-firing shins; and new requirements for getting off the vet’s list.

HISA officials clarified during the teleconference that a horse placed on the vet’s list in a HISA jurisdiction cannot get off the vet’s list unless it is examined in a HISA jurisdiction and has its blood work pulled by HISA personnel and tested under HISA requirements. The clarification became necessary because three states – Louisiana, Texas, and West Virginia – are not under HISA’s jurisdiction.

As a result, a horse placed on the vet’s list in, for example, California who ships to Louisiana might qualify to come off the vet’s list in Louisiana under their own state rules, but if the horse then ships back to a HISA jurisdiction, it needs to fulfill the requirements to come off the vet’s list under HISA’s rules before it will be allowed to race.

The new rules also set up an amended penalty schedule for riding-crop violations. While the new schedule retains a point system in which penalties are ramped up for multiple violations in specific time frames, all riders will have their incurred points reset to zero as of Monday due to the changes, according to HISA officials.

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