REIMAGINED RULEMAKING IMPUNES HORSEMANSHIP ON INTERNATIONAL STAGE

11/10/23

?International competition in horse racing has been a long and costly investment for all that have participated in its development.? But in seventy years of mainstream participation, the enormous dividend for racing countries, their companies and participants has been extremely beneficial for pedigrees and audiences. The development of intercontinental simulcasting and the Breeders Cup are at the pinnacle of those global American achievements.

?When we look with envy at the stability of horse racing in other countries and the fact that 1.45 billion people watched or bet on horse racing in 2020, an increase of 365 million viewers and betters in the same timeframe during 2019 is an artful fact. Thoroughbred horse racing alone draws some of the largest crowds in sports history with Japan being the newest and largest. The amount of money wagered on races in 53 countries is estimated to be more than 100 billion dollars annually.

?The Saturday 11/4 version of the 40th Breeders Cup races was spectacular, sporting a sprinkling of Irish, European and Japanese contributions to America’s finest, including training and riding perfection in every event.? However, in its first phase of “experimental rehabilitation” of American horse racing, the newly minted Horseracing Integrity & Safety Authority (HISA) provided a self-inflicted and shocking disappointment by wading into one of the world’s most celebrated equine contests like they were plucking scratched horses out of a two-bit maiden claiming race.? The late, late, scratches, consisting of Irish and European champion entries and their accompanying global equine royalty evolved. Following a solid week of a bevy of floating, unknown veterinarians probing and darting within and around the quarantine barns of the event the devastation was immediate; resonating throughout the facility; and then to a global equine aristocracy and fan base of a wired-world.? Those professionals in charge of billions and billions of dollars of equine assets working thousands of days and hours were humiliated and blunted without recourse! ?Sad!

?In its claims to have emerged from a “blank piece of paper”, in reality the touted “new rules” were copied nearly 100 % from the established rules of racing that existed competently, in the main, from England, Canada, the US (the Jockey Club) for several centuries, and lastly adopted by the National Association of State Racing Commissioners.? HISA and its administrative inabilities in the equine field is the “blank piece of paper!” While their learning curve has been unappreciatively abrupt, their impetus and opinions appear to be based upon a very ignoble and disparaging interpretation of horse racing passed down by HISA’s intermediaries.

?Unfortunately, in this enormous development culminating from a simple misinterpretation ??we are experiencing “horsemanship”(the art or profession of training a horse)being placed in the hands of practicing veterinarians and their assistants.? It appears that veterinarians and their assistants previously employed in the daily service of horse trainers are now being placed in the sole and final decision making for the safety and management with “veto power” with the interpretation of the soundness and fitness of all horses to be “worked” trained or entered into a program by their current or previous employers.? This is an unprecedented shift, transfer and consolidation of power in international rule making and represents a legally significant and conflicting reporting responsibility and cost increase to all owners of racing horses.

?Historically, practicing veterinarians and their assistants are not licensed or included in the same category as professional trainers or owners in any U.S. or global jurisdiction.

?Further, this mandate would legally require the veterinarian and/or assistant to appear in the publication of infractions as a result of spontaneous out of competition blood testing, workout and racing performance compounded in combination with visual soundness and urine testing. The rule change would require simultaneously being printed in designated equine publications daily accompanying each trainer’s identity.? In other words, the trainer of the tested horse is would be(is) subjected to the decision making and approval of the veterinarian responsible for injecting or attributing to the substance or source associated with a published infraction(bad test.)? While the trainer (or owner) is entirely culpable for the resulting “bad” test, the veterinarian (or his/her assistant)? is exonerated from the act even though the decision-making, timing, and resulting diagnosis and execution of the substance would be conjoined by the veterinarian or his/her assistant. Unfortunately, this is happening now whereby the veterinarian may be at the source of the injection or administration but is not penalized by substance or timing of the infraction even though the latter prescribes and executes the substance and treatment while not necessarily in the presence of the licensed trainer.

?Further, under this rule, the propriety of a veterinarian (or his/her assistant) treating one or all of the horses in the same race and with the authority of veto power with respect to an assumed performance, arises to the level of conflict of interest and represents a breach of public and private trust.

?Unfortunately, this rule-making debacle represents a serious and egregious breach in the historic responsibility and professional art of the training and racing of thoroughbred race horses.? It is obvious that HISA and its related rulemaking responsibilities, transfers an arbitrary level of legal and unlicensed responsibility upon an entity not qualified under the rules. ?And further bestows illegally, in practice, the authority to perform and assume the duties of conditioning, training and racing of a covered racehorse.

?In stark contrast, England, Ireland, Europe and parts of Asia mostly apply the “yard concept” of training horses which provides privacy and responsibility. Their regulatory bodies would not think of diminishing. the dignity, responsibility and privilege of professional horsemanship. Although slightly different, the principles of our equine culture deserve equal respect by its governing agencies.

?For those of you on-track for the BC on Saturday and not availed to par excellence commentator Nick Luck’s interview with HISA… it was fraught with trepidation over the looming “AI” mandate in our sport.? As we have witnessed lately, this sport/industry is already burdened with too much intelligence that is artificial!? Wouldn’t you agree?

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