Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority: Claiming-race purse ratio rule dropped

A proposed rule to restrict purses in claiming races to 1.6 times the claiming price was rescinded from a tranche of regulations submitted on Monday by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority to the Federal Trade Commission, officials of HISA confirmed on Tuesday.

The rule restricting the size of the purse in claiming races generated a substantial amount of negative feedback from both horsemen and racetracks, who said that the rule would put additional financial pressure on owners while reducing incentives for trainers to enter claiming races. The rule was part of a first release of proposed rules generated by HISA that was posted three weeks ago on its website.

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HISA, which has a formal start date of July 1 of next year, submitted rules on racetrack safety practices to the FTC on Monday. The approval process is expected to last four months. Although officials of HISA said that there were few notable changes to the rules, they confirmed that the claiming purse ratio rule was not included in the final submission.

A ratio restricting purses in claiming races first surfaced in New York in 2013 as a result of recommendations from a task force examining a spate of fatalities at Aqueduct racetrack. However, the New York State Gaming Commission in 2019 allowed NYRA to apply for “modifications” to the restriction as long as the track “has implemented measures to ensure close examination of the competitiveness, soundness, and safety of each horse entered in such a race.”