Thoroughbred Safety Coalition formed to promote change throughout industry

LEXINGTON, Ky. - A group of racing companies that operate some of the most high-profile tracks and racing events in the country will push for a laundry list of changes to medication policies and other protocols in an effort to reduce racing injuries, the group announced on Tuesday.

The announcement of the effort, under the name of the Thoroughbred Safety Coalition, underscores the pressure facing the racing industry to reduce catastrophic injuries at a time when the industry has been under fire from some groups over horse deaths, triggered by a spate of high-profile injuries earlier this year at Santa Anita Park in Southern California. The scrutiny has included calls to ban the sport from some animal-rights organizations and anti-racing factions, as well as calls for either federal or state reform of the sport.

The group of racing companies said that the announcement of their policy goals was a jumping-off point for the nascent organization, which includes the New York Racing Association, Churchill Downs Inc., The Stronach Group (which owns Santa Anita), Keeneland, Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, and Breeders’ Cup. Together, the companies host all three races of the Triple Crown and run 85 percent of the graded stakes races held in the U.S., while racetracks owned by the companies have held every single Breeders’ Cup event going back to 2008 – including those scheduled for the next two years.

“This coalition has been formed as a vehicle for change,” said Bill Thomason, the president and CEO of Keeneland, at a press conference at the track that included representatives of all of the members of the group. “There have been points in history where this industry has come together, and when I look at this group up here right now, I have never, ever been involved in an initiative with a group of people who were more serious, more committed, and more dedicated to this sport and to the athletes that are participating in this sport.”

The policy changes being sought by the group take a variety of forms, from supporting an already broad effort to implement tighter restrictions on some therapeutic medications, to creating an equine veterinary reporting system and database that could be plumbed for indications of unsafe practices. Many of the policy changes would be incremental, however, and a large number of them have already been identified as important by other organizations.

Indeed, many of the policy recommendations announced by the coalition are identical to those that have been hashed out over the past several years among a group of racetracks, horsemen’s organizations, and racing commissions in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, coordinated through the National Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association. Representatives of NYRA and The Stronach Group have participated in those talks.

In addition, all of the members of the organization are represented in some way through the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, which put in place a national accreditation program for racetracks and racing states more than a decade ago. The accreditation program requires racetracks and racing commissions to conform to a set of minimum standards to become accredited, in a program modeled along the lines of industry-run accreditation programs in place for hospitals, for example.

While the coalition members indicated that they are all of like minds on the need for the specific changes they have endorsed, the coalition also acknowledged that it does not yet include any representatives of horsemen’s groups or The Jockey Club, two constituencies that will likely be critical to the group making progress on its goals. The support of horsemen, who are usually aligned with veterinary professionals on drug issues, is typically important to any effort to change medication policies at the racing commission level, while The Jockey Club is increasingly involved in efforts around the racing industry to push for change.

Drew Fleming, who was installed as the new president and CEO of Breeders’ Cup earlier this month, said that the coalition would welcome other organizations into the fold and would reach out to all other constituents in the racing industry.

“These are just the founding members today,” said Fleming. “It is an open door for those who believe in safety and taking this sport forward. So we look forward to having dialogue with like-minded groups.”

On Wednesday, The Jockey Club issued a statement saying that it supported the goals of the organization, but the statement noted that “the entire racing industry needs to get on board for these proposals to have maximum impact.”

Kevin Flanery, the president of Churchill Downs racetracks, said that the coalition members would press for the changes to be adopted using every “avenue” available, saying that some measures would be implemented as house rules while others would need buy-in from state racing commissions.

“The reforms will run the gamut between those things we can do as a house rule, and those things where we will need to cooperate with the regulatory agencies and our other partners,” Flanery said. “Everything is on the table, and every avenue that we can [use] to move forward on these reforms will be utilized.”

Earlier this year, an embryonic form of the coalition announced its support for a limited phase-out of the raceday use of Lasix, starting with a ban in 2-year-old races next year and extending to a ban in all stakes races in 2022. The raceday use of Lasix in the U.S. to mitigate bleeding in the lungs is heavily supported by most horsemen’s and veterinarians groups, but many other organizations aligned with breeders are starkly opposed to the raceday use of the drug.

At the time of that announcement, the coalition said that it would pursue the limited ban through state racing commissions. In October, the first step in that effort in Kentucky was shot down when the state’s Equine Drug Research Council rejected a proposal to initiate the phase-in. The council has a large number of veterinarians as members.

Notably, the coalition on Tuesday did not mention Lasix at all, preferring to leave that thorny issue off the table in order to attempt to build a consensus on the less controversial issues it plans to pursue.

Dr. Kathleen Anderson, the past president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, a highly influential organization on veterinary issues, appeared at the conference to endorse the coalition’s goals.

“I can unequivocally get behind these proposed reforms,” Dr. Anderson said, noting that the AAEP had endorsed many of the proposals in its own recent analysis of changes that could improve equine safety.

Several members of the coalition, most notably Churchill Downs Inc., are also now on the record as being opposed to a federal bill supported by other racing organizations that are part of the coalition, but members of the group said on Tuesday that that difference of opinion would not stymie the coalition’s work. Fleming, of the Breeders’ Cup, acknowledged that schism in response to a question, but he noted that federal legislation can take years to find the support necessary to pass.

“Federal legislation, as we all know, can sometimes take time, and that’s why we are all here today, to make immediate impactful change,” Fleming said.

Another notable aspect of the coalition’s list of reforms include the adoption of a “uniform riding-crop rule, limiting crop use and defining crop specifications.” In outlining that policy, Flanery of Churchill Downs said that the group would seek to “limit” use of the whip during a race, and he called the whip “an important safety tool for our jockeys.”

By and large, most of the recommendations remained light on details, from the nitty gritty of language to the route of implementation. But coalition members re-stated that the effort was just beginning, and that they planned to flesh out those details as the effort evolves.

“This is the beginning,” said Thomason, of Keeneland. “This is significant, but there’s a lot more to do.”