With a little over four months until the Horseracing Safety and Integrity Authority is scheduled to go into effect on July 1, many questions about the Authority's rules and regulations remain unanswered. The Thoroughbred Daily News took on some of those questions earlier this week, including what shareholders can expect the HISA cost structure to be, as well as dates on which that information should be made more clear.
The law was passed in late 2020, and it prescribes that the racetrack safety program be placed into effect on July 1. However, HISA's anti-doping/medication rules aren't expected to be put into effect until 2023.
In terms of cost, the law states that HISA needs to give individual states an estimated cost by April 1. Those states will determine whether they want to send in their fees according to that estimation by May 2. If a state determines it does not wish to remit fees based on that estimation, they will still have to remit fees on a monthly basis, the amount of which will be determined HISA based on the number of starts that month.
The estimated cost HISA will give is expected to be calculated not just by the number of starts, but also on the state's overall purses.
The rules posted explain: “For example, if all starts in all races at all tracks were treated equally, West Virginia would have a larger proportionate share than Kentucky, even though the purses and entry fees generated by the Kentucky races dwarf those generated by West Virginia races. Instead, the Authority defined Annual Covered Racing Starts in a manner that is consistent with an equitable allocation of the funding needs of the Authority.”
In addition, no state's annual HISA cost will exceed 10 percent of that state's total purses; all costs in excess of that 10 percent will be allocated to other states that do not exceed the maximum.
Questions remain about whether there will be a difference in cost prior to the implementation of the anti-doping program (as well as, of course, who will implement it after the breakdown in negotiations with the USADA), and whether the funding will be used to cover the legal costs HISA may have accrued in defense against the two lawsuits that have been filed against it.
Read more at the Thoroughbred Daily News.
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