Racing oversight bill to be introduced in Senate

Two U.S. senators will introduce legislation next week that would appoint the United States Anti-Doping Agency as the overseer of racing’s medication and drug-testing policies, the senators announced on Friday, but the bill differs in some ways from legislation that has already been introduced in the House of Representatives.

The senators – Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico, and Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon – have previously supported legislation that would apply federal oversight of racing, using highly critical language of the racing industry. The Senate legislation would give USADA, a private, non-profit company, the sole authority to devise the sport’s medication rules, whereas the House bill would create a board comprising USADA and industry officials to determine the policies.

As in the House bill, the Senate bill would also ban the raceday administration of the diuretic furosemide, which is legal to use in North American racing jurisdictions on raceday to mitigate bleeding in the lungs.

The announcement distributed by the senators included several references to illegal doping, and Udall said in the statement that horses running in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby “will be injected with painkillers before being loaded into the gate.” It is illegal in every racing jurisdiction to administer a painkiller within 24 hours of a race, and the administration of such drugs is regulated. No horse running in the Kentucky Derby has tested positive for an illegal or regulated drug since 1968.

The statement also referenced a spate of deaths at Santa Anita this winter that focused scrutiny on racing as necessitating federal reform.

Supporters of federal oversight of racing have largely banded together behind the House version of the bill. However, the legislation does not enjoy unanimous support in the racing industry, and several weeks ago, Churchill Downs Inc. and a number of other tracks announced an initiative to instead seek changes to racing’s rules outside a federal framework.