HISA submits modified medication rules to FTC

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority submitted a highly modified batch of rules dealing with its anti-doping and medication control program to the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday night.

The amended rules were made available on HISA’s website on Thursday. HISA had posted an earlier batch of the rules on its website early in July in order to gather public comment on the first draft. The proposed rules establish prohibited and controlled medications, penalties for violations of those policies, appeal procedures, standards of evidence, laboratory accreditation, and the protocols that will guide the collection and testing of both out-of-competition and post-race samples, among other topics.

The submission of the rules starts the clock on a separate process by the FTC to collect public comment and then either approve, modify, or reject the rules individually. HISA is scheduled to put the rules into force on Jan. 1, 2023. The rules and procedures would replace those in place at the state level in the U.S. racing jurisdictions under HISA’s authority.

In a statement, HISA said that the modifications made to the rules were the result of “numerous open discussions and meetings with industry organizations and individuals, as well as the careful consideration of more than 200 comments submitted by racing participants and the general public.”

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On Wednesday morning, Lisa Lazarus, the chief executive officer of HISA, had referenced the authority’s plan to submit the amended rules to the FTC during a presentation at a racing and gambling conference in Saratoga and had said that the authority strove to do a better job taking industry feedback into account on the initial batch. Earlier this year, the authority was heavily criticized by some racing constituencies after rules for its safety program were submitted to the FTC without much modification from the initial batch, despite hundreds of submitted comments.

“We really tried hard this time to make sure we were listening and incorporating those things that made sense,” Lazarus said.

According to HISA’s Thursday statement, HISA is still collecting feedback on one element of the anti-doping and medication control rules. A technical document called the Prohibited Substance List that contains the regulatory status of hundreds of medications and substances is still being posted for public comment, and HISA said that it “will continue to solicit stakeholder input before submitting that document to the FTC at a later date.”

The technical document has been the subject of intense debate among many horsemen’s organizations since it was first released a month ago.

HISA reiterated in its statement that the FTC will also collect public comment on the rules as part of its review and approval process. In addition, HISA said that after approval of the rules, it “will also work with the industry to evolve the rules based on their feedback and as new data, science and experience on the ground dictates.”

In total, the amended rules cover six sections and run nearly 200 pages. According to a review by Daily Racing Form, some of the more significant changes to the rules are:

* An entire appendix was added to one section of the rules to lay out procedures for prohibited or controlled substances that can often appear in a horse’s samples due to contamination. The section is called “atypical findings” and lays out the procedures HISA will follow to investigate the possibility of contamination.

* Language was added to the rules clarifying that substances on HISA’s prohibited list are also prohibited from appearing in a horse that is tested post-workout, rather than post-race.

* Language requiring horses to be immediately available at all times for out-of-competition testing was loosened to allow some delays in producing a horse at an off-track site provided that the person responsible for the horse can cite “extenuating circumstances” and can make the horse available within a six-hour timeframe.

* Language that provides for the suspension of owners was modified to ensure that a suspension would not lead to the financial abandonment of any horse.

* Language was added to a section on search and seizure capabilities for HISA investigators that clarifies that the materials to be searched or seized must be “used in the care, treatment, training, and/or racing” of horses under HISA’s jurisdiction.

* A points system for multiple violations of controlled medication policies that is similar to one already in place in many states in the U.S. was added.

* Language was added regarding the adjudication of identical controlled-medication violations in multiple horses in one trainer’s care so that the violations are treated as one violation if the trainer had not yet been notified of the first or subsequent violations. Similar rules are in place currently in many racing states.

* Language was added to the Prohibited List that allows trainers to administer “supplements” to horses on raceday provided that the substance does not cause an “action or effect” on a number of bodily systems and functions.

* The name of an adjudicating body for potential violations of controlled medication policies has been changed from the National Stewards Panel to the Internal Adjudication Panel. Officials have said that the inclusion of the word “stewards” in the name of the body created confusion.