Kentucky HBPA sues to stop Lasix bans

The Kentucky Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association has filed a lawsuit challenging efforts by the state and Kentucky racetracks to implement raceday bans on the administration of the anti-bleeding medication Lasix.

The lawsuit and an accompanying request for a temporary restraining order, filed in Franklin County Circuit Court last week, ask for a preliminary injunction that would prevent tracks from enforcing the ban, which was granted preliminary approval by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission earlier this year but is still going through a legislative process that could take months to complete.

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Churchill Downs, which opened last Saturday, ran a 2-year-old race on Thursday with the ban in place under the track’s house rules, which are enforced through stall applications and the conditions of races. The track’s condition book also includes 2-year-old races later in the meet, including on Friday, in which the raceday administration of Lasix, or furosemide, is banned.

The lawsuit was first reported by The Paulick Report.

The suit names the KHRC, Churchill Downs, and Keeneland Racecourse as defendants. The judge in the case, Thomas Wingate, has scheduled a teleconference on May 27 to hear arguments about the request for a temporary restraining order.

The effort to stop the ban from going into effect follows in the footsteps of a successful effort by the Kentucky HBPA to stop a similar prohibition in 2015. That year, the KHRC approved a measure allowing tracks to ban raceday administrations of the drug in the conditions of their races, but an opinion issued late in the year by the state’s attorney general, Jack Conway, contending that the commission “may not delegate the authority to determine whether to have furosemide-free races to individual tracks” paved the way for the KHRC and supporters of the rule to drop the effort.

The Kentucky HBPA’s complaint mimics the language of that opinion issued in 2015 by saying that “the power to make the decision related to medications is vested in the KHRC and not in any private entity or person.”

The measure approved by the KHRC in 2020 codifies the ban into statute, which requires the rule to go through the state’s Legislative Research Committee. After a review by the LRC, the rule would need to be approved by the state legislature and signed by the state’s governor.

In challenging Churchill’s and Keeneland’s plans to hold Lasix-free 2-year-old races this summer, the motion for a temporary restraining order filed by the Kentucky HBPA cited the fact that the rule has not passed through all of its stages and remains unapproved.

“Unwilling to wait for the regulation to be discussed and either approved or rejected, [the tracks] have decided to ban the use of Lasix on race day in races involving two-year-olds, effectively bypassing KHRC’s exclusive authority to enact a private ban,” the motion states. It argues that the ban would cause “irreparable harm to the ability of Kentucky horsemen and horsewomen to earn a living or race their two-year-olds in the Commonwealth.”

Under the measure approved this year, raceday administrations of Lasix would be banned for all 2-year-old races in 2020. The ban would then be extended to all stakes races in 2021.

Officials for the Kentucky HBPA did not respond to phone calls.