The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority would have the power to suspend a racetrack’s accreditation or a licensee’s ability to participate in horse racing under new rules the regulatory body submitted for approval on Thursday. The two new powers are part of a batch of rules covering a wide range of subjects that the authority submitted to the Federal Trade Commission, its overseer, as the result of ongoing reviews of spates of fatalities this year and the impacts of its regulations, some of which have been in place for 15 months. The rules also contain sections on the creation of a database to monitor racing and training injuries and new regulations regarding voiding of claims, the injection of corticosteroids into fetlock joints, and the range of penalties for violations of the whip rules. In a release, HISA said that the new rules were “developed after months of dialogue with and feedback from racing participants across the country,” including its Horsemen’s Advisory Group, which was created late last year to address concerns from some trainers that HISA was not adequately communicating with horsemen during the development of its regulations. Under HISA’s enabling legislation, new regulations must be posted for public comment for 60 days prior to being considered for approval by the FTC. HISA said that it had already posted the new regulations on its website and “considered” more than 600 comments that had been submitted to the authority prior to sending the regulations on to the FTC. The ability to suspend a racetrack’s accreditation would create a path in which HISA would be able to block a track’s ability to send its signal across state lines if the track did not address violations of HISA’s safety rules. Under the new rules, HISA would be required to issue a “show-cause” notice to a track outlining the violations, and tracks would be able to address those concerns in a hearing, held within either three days or seven days of the notice being issued. The show-cause notice can be issued if HISA “has reasonable grounds to believe that the conditions or operations of a racetrack present an imminent danger to the health, safety, or welfare of covered horses or riders arising from specific violations” of the authority’s safety rules. Those rules went into effect on July 1 of last year. A similar process would play out when the authority seeks to suspend a “covered person’s registration,” which is a requirement for participating in racing in HISA jurisdictions. Under that scenario, the licensee would be given a notice including “an itemization of the specific Authority’s safety and accreditation rules which the covered person is believed to have violated” along with the “corrective actions suggested to achieve compliance.” The accused would have the right to a provisional hearing to consider whether the provisional suspension should stay in place. If the suspension remains in place, the accused would have the right to a final hearing, within 14 days of a request. The panel adjudicating the final hearing would then have seven days to issue a response ranging from reinstatement, suspension, or revocation. The new rules also include a long section detailing the creation of a database that would be used to examine racing and training injuries and fatalities. This year, a spate of fatalities at Churchill Downs and Saratoga Race Course drew widespread public attention and led to Churchill moving the remainder of its spring-summer meet to Ellis Park, a racetrack it owns in western Kentucky. HISA conducted a review of the fatalities, and two weeks ago, it released a report pledging to conduct “academic-level research and predictive analytics” to better identify risk factors for horses. In addition to veterinary inspection reports and treatment records, the database will also contain data on track conditions and assessments. The new rules also require veterinarians to submit documentation to HISA of any treatments that are provided to horses outside of a licensed racing or training facility, such as at a farm, clinic, or hospital. Additional new rules affecting veterinary care pertain to the use of devices such as shock-wave machines. Also, any horse that is administered a corticosteroid injection into a fetlock will be prohibited from racing within 30 days of the injection and will not be able to work out for 14 days after the injection. An identical rule has been in place in California for several years. The rules will mandate a new position at racetracks, a “horseshoe inspector,” who will be required to “be knowledgeable of matters pertaining to hooves, horseshoes, and the rules of the authority.” The person will be required to conduct inspections of all horseshoes “and other orthotics” of every horse entered to race. Existing rules place restrictions on the use of “traction devices” on horseshoes. On the subject of voided claims, the new rules attempt to address a situation that has arisen multiple times since HISA’s Anti-Doping and Medication Control program went into effect on May 22. Under the new rules, HISA will be required to “promptly” inform a claimant of a horse that the horse tested positive for a controlled or banned substance in the race in which the horse was claimed. The claimant will then have 48 hours from the notification to decide whether to return the horse to the original owner and trainer. A handful of horses that have tested positive for controlled or banned substances since the ADMC rules went into effect have done so after a race in which they were claimed, and some horsemen have complained that HISA needs a process to notify the new owners of the existence of the positive test in a timely fashion and allow for the return of the claimed horse. Under HISA rules, some violations of drug rules require a horse to be suspended, often for several months. For whip violations, the rules would put in place a new matrix for penalties arising from improper use of the whip, with many penalties now being based on the size of the purse for the race in which the violation occurred. On balance, the financial penalties for whip violations have been lowered for races in which the overall purse is $9,000 or less. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.