HISA gives provisional accreditation to Kentucky drug-testing lab

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority has granted provisional accreditation to a drug-testing lab in Kentucky and will begin sending samples to the lab effective immediately, HISA said on Monday.

The provisional accreditation will make the Equine Integrity and Anti-Doping Sciences Lab the fourth lab in operation in the U.S. that is authorized by HISA to test samples for illicit and regulated substances.

The lab lost its accreditation last March when it was operated by the University of Kentucky, which at that time had announced an investigation of its director, who was subsequently fired. UK completed a sale of the lab to Eagle Diagnostics, a private company, in April this year.

The list of HISA’s accredited labs dipped to three earlier this year when the authority suspended the accreditation status of the Pennsylvania Equine Toxicology and Research Lab for a minimum of six months due to “nonconformities” with HISA’s accreditation standards.

In 2024, HISA conducted 74,534 sample collections from U.S. tracks under the authority’s jurisdiction.

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