Tom Rooney, who was hired as the chief executive of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association in October of last year, is a familiar face on Capitol Hill. He served five terms in the House of Representatives before retiring in 2019, representing a Central Florida district as a moderate Republican. The relationships he made in Washington, D.C., were a major reason the NTRA board embraced his candidacy for the job, which requires lobbying on behalf of the interests of Thoroughbred racing and breeding. Rooney’s last name is also familiar to those in racing – whether it be Thoroughbred racing, Standardbred racing, or dog racing. His grandfather Art Rooney, founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers, bought and operated tracks along the East Coast, and those business interests were handed down to his father, Dan Rooney. The family also operated a breeding farm in Maryland, and Tom Rooney is now breeding horses there. Rooney took the NTRA position at a time when the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, a new national overseer for racing created by federal legislation passed late in 2020, had begun to lay the groundwork for its partial launch this summer. HISA’s work has been controversial to some constituencies in racing, and several organizations have filed lawsuits challenging the authority’s enabling legislation and jurisdiction. Rooney remains solidly in HISA’s corner: “This is the law of the land,” he said, during a recent interview in the box seats of Saratoga Race Course. “We better get it right, and we better all come together and figure out how we can make this work.” Excerpts of the interview, which was conducted by DRF's industry reporter Matt Hegarty and edited for clarity, follow. Q: I’m not going to start with a question. Here at Saratoga, 86 years ago, your grandfather, Art Rooney, had a rather extraordinary experience. I’ll let you tell it. A: Like everything else, it’s been embellished and maybe not everything is accurate. But for the most part, it was over several days, at Saratoga and Empire City, which became Yonkers, but culminating here. Apparently he had won so much money that the bookmakers had to stop taking bets because there wasn’t any more money left. He got a police escort to the New York-Pennsylvania border, because he was carrying, as I understand, over $300,000 in cash, which back then was a lot of money. He went back to Pittsburgh and told my grandmother that they’d never have to worry about money again. His brother had a club football team at the time, because pro football wasn’t a thing yet, and he was involved in that, with a couple of his brothers. [The team] went through a couple of iterations when professional football was finally legalized in Pennsylvania [in 1933]. First, it was the Majestic Radios, which was of course a sponsorship thing. I’m thinking of naming a horse that, so hopefully no one takes it. But that led to the Pirates, and then the Steelers. So if it wasn’t for this place that we are sitting at right now, the Steelers probably would have never been a thing, and second of all, I probably wouldn’t have had the blessings I had to run for Congress and eventually get this job. It's funny to look back and realize how a big heater for my grandfather here at this track translated into so much. Q: I’ve read it described as a parlay. So is that your understanding, that he kept plowing his winnings back into bigger bets? A: Yeah, he kept betting. There’s a turf magazine I have that is literally from that time. It describes everything. I have it framed. It [was published] way before the Steelers had any success. It was even before my dad was born. Because at some point during it my grandfather had to leave New York because my dad’s older brother was born. So he drove down to Pittsburgh to meet the baby and then drove straight back up here. Q: In the middle of the run? A: Yes, in the middle of it. And Tim Mara, who founded the [New York] Giants, he was one of the bookmakers. That was [Mara’s] first gig. Q: That’s a lot of history. A: There’s a story in a book that just came out … and it’s about how five of those guys – Mara, [George] Halas, my grandfather, I think George Marshall. and maybe Bert Bell from the Eagles – all came up here and over a week of coming to the track conceptualized the idea of a pro football league. Back then college football was it, and it was kind of sacrilegious to talk about making money as a professional player. … Back then there were guys who were great at football in college who went on to become mailmen because there was no professional league. I always thought that would be a really cool movie, following these guys in their 20s in Saratoga for a week, and them talking about the beginning of the league. This is the place where that happened. Q: I don’t want to be presumptuous, but growing up in the family that you did, my guess is that you had a lot of opportunities when you were a young man. You got your law degree, and then you went into the army. Take me through that decision. A: My brother had gone into the Marine Corps. We were both in law school. He told me, ‘You should really think about going into the Marines.’ I think I was 27 years old at the time, and I told him, ‘I’m not joining the Marines.’ But my namesake, my grandfather’s brother, died in World War II, when he was 19. So it’s always been kind of heavy on me, that Tom Rooney was killed in action on Guam. Then, for a more pragmatic reason, I was always interested in criminal law. Those were my favorite classes in law school. And then an army recruiter came to campus, and he said, ‘You can do DUIs at the state attorney’s office for the next 10 years, or you can potentially have a murder case at JAG Corps in your first year.’ I didn’t have a murder case, but I did have a manslaughter case. But the attraction was that you had a much greater exposure to serious crimes. I had also just married my wife, and she was interested in joining too, so we went into the army together. We went to Ft. Hood, Texas, and then I got to teach constitutional law at West Point. It was great. Q: So after that, after some political jobs, you served 10 years as a Florida congressmen, as a Republican in what became a reliably red district. But you decided to retire in 2019 after five terms. Why did you make that decision? A: I had always said in my first campaign and throughout my career that 10 years was probably a good run. Most people don’t stick to those term-limit promises, especially because as you start to get seniority you get more power. But it was a moment in time when [Republicans] knew we were going to go back into the minority. For either party, when you are in the minority, you lose control of the floor, what comes to vote, your committees. As a freshman, being a minority, it’s fine. But when you are there after 10 years and you go back to the minority, you are basically neutered, so to speak. Also, my kids were growing up, playing on the football team, playing on the baseball team. I just didn’t want to miss that. There were various other reasons. It became more difficult to get things done [in Congress]. Things were getting very partisan on both sides of the aisle. There was very little cooperation. That may be because of social media, because of cable news going either hard to the left or hard to the right. The pragmatists were looking for the exits. I loved it, my time in Washington. I’m not going to sit here and downplay it. But it has changed a lot even since then. Q: So last year, the NTRA position became open with the retirement of Alex Waldrop. What attracted you to it, specifically? A: Obviously, love of the horse. I grew up in my grandfather’s and my dad’s shadow. They ran racetracks in Philadelphia, Vermont, New York; they owned a stud farm in Maryland; and now, eventually, I am breeding and owning my own horses. I have a love of this place, and this sport, that goes beyond something like, ‘Oh, this might be a good job.’ For me, it’s really personal. I had become involved in the Maryland Horse Breeders Association [after retiring from Congress], and I had gotten to know some people through the various iterations of the HISA bill before it became HISA. So they knew that I was into horse racing, and I had gotten to know a lot of people in the industry as a result. When Alex Waldrop retired, they called me up and said this might be a perfect job for you. At the time, I was coaching JV football (laughs). And the only reason I was doing that is because it was during COVID, and the only way you could go to the games was if you were a coach. I was 50 years old, and I didn’t want to be done. I thought I had another chapter after Congress other than just being retired. So now I’m using my relationships I had made over those 10 years in Congress, whether it be legislators or staffers, to make sure that first of all, they know what I am doing now. But also so they know what’s important to our industry. More and more, with HISA, taxes, sports betting, all of that stuff, it’s bubbling up to the federal level, where it used to just be at the local, state level. So I think it’s a good thing to have someone [at the NTRA] who the politicians already know. That’s why I think I am good for it. Q: What would you say would be the NTRA’s top three federal priorities right now? A: Obviously, assisting [HISA CEO] Lisa Lazarus and getting HISA across the finish line after Jan. 1 [when HISA's anti-doping and medication control program goes into effect]. Getting it set up. There’s some angst from some members of Congress over HISA, and it comes down to meeting them in person, getting Lisa to come with me to meet with some of my old friends who are against it. She’s very good at in-person meetings, where if people have some problems, once they hear her talk, they feel more disarmed. So it’s a positive thing for me to walk her into an office to talk about that stuff. So taxes would be a big priority. We’re going to have taxes come up again next Congress. There’s a new farm bill, and we’re going to have taxes come up in that bill, too. And immigration. That’s one of those issues that’s always going to be important to farms and backstretches. But without comprehensive immigration reform, all you can do is sort of play at the edges and make sure that the numbers are where they need to be, so that farms and backstretches have the numbers they need for the machines to keep going. Q: Comprehensive immigration reform looks impossible right now. But can you get that H-2B number up to where the industry needs it, on a long-term basis? Is that possible politically? A: Yes. We’re constantly asking for that number to go up, and they have increased the number this year. There are things you can do with H-2A [agricultural workers] and H-2B [non-agricultural guest workers] to make it more pragmatic. On the farm, if it’s a “temporary worker” it’s usually for a harvest or a crop, and then they have to leave at a certain point before they come back. On a horse farm that doesn’t make any sense. So we’re trying to address that in some creative ways. But you’re right. Unless there’s some huge kumbaya moment, there’s no chance for comprehensive reform. One side is not going to give something up without getting something in return, and it’s just a stalemate. But we’ve joined some coalitions to try to [address H-2B reforms], and so we’ll be meeting with all those players. Q: What’s your initial assessment as far as HISA’s launch and the industry pushback? A: It’s a huge change, and whenever you have a huge change, especially from the federal government level, you are going to have people … Look, in this country, we respect as much local control as possible. I get that. I agree with it. But there needed to be change for our sport to make sure that there is an appearance of fairness across the country. Back when I started I had a conversation with a trainer down in Florida, and his big thing was, ‘I just want it to be fair.’ That permeates everything for me. And to do that, to make it fair, we needed to do something on the federal level that everyone was included in. And I understand that there’s a little bit of angst and anxiety over changing something that people were used to. And I also understand that there are costs. I was in a meeting this morning with some racetrack owners, and one of their biggest things right now is, ‘How do we budget for what the costs might be [once the anti-doping regime begins on Jan. 1]?’ They have to get ready for that. So there are still things to be worked out. But I think in the end we’re going to have a better product, not just one that is fair for the horses and trainers and the people who bet on them, but one that has that perception to the outside world, and one where you’re not going to run into a jurisdiction or a state where there’s one trainer winning every race for some reason and there’s no way for anyone else to win there. And I think that for us to move forward as a sport, we also have to show that for other things, like sports betting, we have to be able to say that we belong there, that we should be involved in that. We are the oldest sport in America. We belong in those parlays and in those wagers. Q: Given the pushback, and the qualms of some legislators, could a new version of HISA pass in Congress if need be? Under some scenarios based on how some of the legal rulings come down, it could take a new bill to “fix” it, for lack of a better word. A: It would be very difficult. This bill was just passed into law recently, and to go back to the well this fast? You see how things happen in Washington. The things that make it to the president’s desk are usually must-pass things. They’re not usually bills that are unique. Even HISA was part of something bigger. So the only way we could have a fix, it would have to be part of some larger package. A lot of people who support and work at HISA don’t agree that it needs to be fixed. They think it needs to be built. It needs to be stood up. The court challenges have been by and large unsuccessful, and there have been a couple administrative-type issues that [HISA is] working on. But this is the law of the land. This is what we’re going to be living in. We better get it right, and we better all come together and figure out how we can make this work. Because it’s the law we have to live under. Q: Is it part of the NTRA’s brief to bring that consensus back? Prior to you taking the job, prior to HISA passing, the NTRA got a unanimous show of support for the legislation from its board, which represents a lot of different constituencies. Do you still have that consensus, and if not, how do you bring it back? A: The NTRA is doing everything that it can to help HISA and Lisa Lazarus stand up by January of 2023. At our board meetings and in our informal discussions, we’re always talking about how to implement the law in the best way that we can. Again, it is the law. Whether or not some people had reservations about it in the past, I can honestly say that everyone now is on board. They see, pragmatically, what we are working with. Again, if you are relying on a legislative fix to change it, it’s an extreme longshot. The better way is to figure out how to work within the law and make it work for you. Q: Aside from HISA, one of the biggest issues facing racing right now, and one that will continue to confront racing, is equine welfare. In 2019, during the Santa Anita controversy, Sen. Dianne Feinstein suggested that racing should be banned in California. Other legislators who are close to the animal-rights movement have also agitated very aggressively against racing. What can you say to those legislators in support of racing? A: With HISA now being in place, we have certain standards that everyone has to abide by. So when you have those breakdowns … we can point to the fact that we have uniform standards that will help us avoid situations like that in the future. We can say that these are isolated situations in which something may have been missed, and that we have the structure in place to address it and fix it. It gets back to us being more of a national sport, rather than regional. That causes growing pains, but it also has advantages, like the things we have been talking about. I don’t know if that answer will satisfy the Senator, but I think that had a huge role in why HISA eventually passed. Q: And what do you say to legislators who have existential problems with racing? What can you say to those legislators who oppose racing no matter what its record on safety and welfare is? A: You can’t say anything to those people. Q: Really? A: Look, our family ran dog-racing tracks in Florida. I probably was at one of the last Ringling Bros. circus shows that had elephants. All of those things have ended in the past five years. Q: I was going to bring up both things. A: So you know what the agenda is. The agenda with certain of those groups is for all this to go away. For this huge crowd here to go away, and for Keeneland to go away, and for what I got to see at Oaklawn and Del Mar go away, all that excitement, and for the Derby to go away. There’s a lot of excitement, there’s a lot of youth here, there’s a lot of promise for our sport, for the future. But there are elements that want it to go away forever. Part and parcel of my job is to make sure that I am communicating to legislators and potentially people like yourself that the benefits of our sport far outweigh whatever platform that its opponents are pitching. It’s unfair, it’s untrue, and it doesn’t tell the full picture about how much the people who work here love the athlete and the sport that we are all here to watch.