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Earle Mack Honored with KTOB’s William T. Young Humanitarian Award

Owner, breeder, humanitarian, and philanthropist Earle Mack was bestowed with the William T. Young Humanitarian Award by the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders (KTOB) Wednesday morning. The former U.S. Ambassador, who has been breeding and racing Thoroughbreds for nearly six decades and has had 25 black-type winners, including Canadian Triple Crown winner Peteski (Affirmed) and U.S. MGISW November Snow (Storm Cat), is well known for his humanitarian work, both in the industry and in the greater world. A long-time supporter of numerous equine charities and a strong proponent of Thoroughbred aftercare, Mack also founded the Man O' War Project, which studies and uses equine-assisted therapy for veterans suffering from PTSD. Last month, he led a delegation to help Ukranian refugees on the border with Hungary.

The William T. Young Humanitarian Award was established by the KTOB in 2003 and honors a person who positively affects people in the Thoroughbred industry, as well as throughout the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It is voted on by the KTOB's Board of Directors and recognizes someone associated with the racing industry who “promotes the human endeavor,” according to KTOB's website.

In his acceptance speech, Mack commented on the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA), called for an industry change from dirt to cushion surfaces, and stressed the need to protect racehorses.

“I would like to comment on the state of our industry and our continued mission to address the health, safety, and welfare of our beloved Thoroughbreds,” said Mack. “Everyone in this room prizes and loves the Thoroughbreds for their hearts, their athleticism, and their beautiful extensions, which touch our very souls. Let's protect them for all they give to us and all they mean to us. Recently we've made enormous strides towards ensuring the integrity of our industry through the passage of HISA. It took almost 10 years–from conception to passage–which, as you all know, was a major undertaking. But even with the safeguard of HISA, there is more work to be done to satisfy public opinion, our industry, and ourselves that we are doing everything possible to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of our equine athletes.

“It's no secret that organizations like PETA and other animal welfare groups would like nothing better than to shut down horseracing as a sport and they've come damn close in California! These groups are fueled by injuries, breakdowns, and mortalities at our racetracks. Knowing this, we need to do everything we can to have the safest racing surfaces in the world. I would like to put forth the bold and necessary challenge to our industry to transition our dirt surfaces to cushion surfaces within the next 7-10 years. We have the technology and the brightest minds in the business to accomplish this.

“Such a measure would cut racetrack injuries in half and could very well ensure our future and our long-term sustainability.”

Mack is an Army veteran who, in addition to his racing and military achievements, has a long list of accomplishments in business, government, and the arts. He has long advocated for the safety and wellness of Thoroughbreds. In February, Mack was awarded the Eclipse Award of Merit in recognition for a lifetime of outstanding achievement.

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Monmouth Appeals to Racing Commission to Amend Whipping Rules

With new regulations regarding whipping set to go into effect throughout the country on July 1 when the Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) takes effect, management at Monmouth Park has asked the New Jersey Racing Commission to adopt the more lenient HISA rules when the meet opens May 7.

The story was first reported by the Asbury Park Press.

At the start of the 2021 meet controversial rules were put in place by the New Jersey Racing Commission that banned the practice of whipping horses to encourage them to run. While restrictions on the use of the whip were in place in several states, New Jersey was the only jurisdiction that banned the use of the whip outright.

On July 1, that is set to change when HISA rules will supercede regulations put in place by state racing commissions. The HISA rules allow a jockey to strike a horse six times a race but no more than twice in succession. With the rules set to change some seven weeks into the meet, Monmouth is asking the racing commission to put the HISA rules in place at the start of the meet. Track management has requested that the commission hold a special meeting to discuss the matter.

“I think we have a very good chance of getting this done,” Dennis Drazin, the chairman and CEO of the management company that operates Monmouth, told the Press. “It doesn't make sense to have different rules to start the meet and switch midstream.”

Several jockeys raised objections to the rule last year, arguing that the whip was needed for safety purposes. While most decided to ride at the meet, 13-time Monmouth champion Joe Bravo refused to ride and relocated to California. Antonio Gallardo also cited the rule when announcing he was leaving Monmouth to ride at Woodbine.

From a pari-mutuel wagering standpoint, Monmouth did not have a particularly strong 2021 meet, which raised the possibility that some bettors shied away from the Monmouth product because of the whipping ban.

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THA Chairman Alan Foreman Joins Writers’ Room

Alan Foreman, the chairman and CEO of the Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland Tuesday afternoon as the Green Group Guest of the Week. Discussing the upcoming 2022 MATCH series for mid-Atlantic horses, a program he spearheaded, and providing updates on the scheduled renovation projects at Pimlico and Laurel, Foreman also called upon his legal expertise to weigh in on Bob Baffert's appeal of the GI Kentucky Derby disqualification and why the THA supports the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act.

While many in the racing industry lamented the breakdown in negotiations between the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority to implement a drug enforcement program, Foreman said he was bullish on HISA's separate safety program, set to take effect July 1.

“The HISA Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program relates to medication, while the Safety Program relates to every other aspect of the health, safety and welfare of the horse and rider,” he explained. “I think that's the most important part of the HISA program, because horses breaking down on the track is our worst nightmare, and horses aren't dying because of medication. When horses break down, it's multi-factorial. For example, we just did our review of the breakdowns in the mid-Atlantic region for the past year. Maryland was having its lowest incidence of breakdown in its history until the track went bad and failed at Laurel in October, and we had a cluster of eight breakdowns in a span of three weeks. We got right on it, but it blew the numbers. So there was a racetrack surface issue. Not a medication issue, not a training issue. The value of the HISA safety program is to work with everyone on racing surfaces and identifying horses at risk so they don't get on the track when they shouldn't be. That program and the uniformity that HISA is going to bring is why it got our support.”

The conversation later turned to the legal back-and-forth involving Baffert over the past year, with Foreman saying, “When we talk about HISA and the manner in which our rules are adjudicated, it isn't so much that our underlying rules are problematic, it's the enforcement process and the way justice is meted out and people can game the system. At the end of the day, I think it all went downhill after Bob's press conference. The rumor was that there had been a positive test at the Derby, and there was no confidentiality so he actually got out in front of the story. But when he came out and said he had no idea how it could have happened, and within five days, the story came out as to how it happened, he was boxed into a corner and he wasn't prepared to accept responsibility and take the punishment. So this has played out in a sense where there's no exit strategy, from either side, frankly. Churchill, by taking the action it did and making very clear that it wasn't backing down, started to press the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission to move more expeditiously. And here we are now, but it just took way too long, and that's not acceptable to anybody.”

Elsewhere on the show, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, Lane's End, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders, XBTV, West Point Thoroughbreds and Legacy Bloodstock, the writers raved about a tremendous weekend of racing and gave their early impressions on the prospective GI Kentucky Derby and GI Longines Kentucky Oaks fields after the final round of prep races. Click here to watch the show; click here for the audio-only version or find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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Sports Betting Regulatory Association Announced, HISA Discussed at ARCI Conference

LEXINGTON, KY–The Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI) announced the official launch of the Sports Betting Regulators Association (SBRA) during the closing session of the group's 88^th Annual Conference on Safe Horses and Honest Sport.

ARCI president and CEO Ed Martin explained that the formation of the SBRA has been in the works for several years and was organized to meet a growing need to support government agencies assigned with the responsibility of regulating sports betting within their jurisdiction. Sports betting in America continues to expand and has now been legalized in 33 states.

“With some of the sports that people are allowed to wager on, there is no transparency,” Martin explained. “The states have a responsibility to ensure that everything they allow people to wager on is on the up and up. It's a new era and it's an area that horse racing regulators have tremendous experience in. The world has changed in these past couple of years and there's a need. More and more states have gone into the business of regulating sports betting.”

The goal of the SBRA will be to ensure standards and best practices are set in place to promote integrity and transparency in the sports betting field. Martin said that the SBRA will function as an autonomous committee of the ARCI that will be open to all sports betting regulatory entities, including those that are not existing members of the ARCI. SBRA policies will emulate the rules and standards established already by the ARCI in horse and greyhound racing.

“This is an expansion of what the ARCI will work on,” Martin said. “We will not lessen what we do on the horseracing side in any way. The perception is that we're part of the racing industry, but the reality is that we serve the general public. Based on the integrity concerns that are going on in human sport, and when you look at the comparison of what is done in horse racing in regards to transparency of officials and anti-doping, it's that transparency that provides consumer protection for the public that is wagering on and supporting these sports.”

Martin said that the SBRA will conduct its first meeting on July 10 in Boston in conjunction with the National Conference of Legislatures from Gaming States.

Also during Wednesday's session of the ARCI conference, Ben Liebman, a Government Lawyer in Residence at Albany Law School, examined the pending federal court challenges to the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act.

Liebman looked at the two court cases that have challenged HISA–the federal lawsuit filed by the state of Oklahoma in April 2021 and another lawsuit filed by the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (NHBPA) that was dismissed in March 2022 when U.S. District Court Judge James Wesley Hendrix said that while the Court recognized that HISA pushes boundaries of public/private collaboration, the law as constructed stays within the current constitutional limitation.

Liebman said that one of the main issues regarding the case of HISA's constitutionality is the question of to what extent the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority is subordinate to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Liebman used an example comparing HISA and the FTC to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). FINRA, a private, self-regulatory authority that regulates 624,000 financial brokers, is overseen by the SEC. Liebman explained that before a rule created by FINRA goes into effect, the SEC must approve that rule. The SEC's ability to control and supervise FINRA makes FINRA constitutional.

“You have a very strong belief that because of how FINRA has worked, HISA's authority should have the powers that are accorded FINRA,” Liebman said. “This issue becomes a matter of if the Authority controls racing regulation or if it is controlled by and subordinate to the Federal Trade Commission.”

Liebman added that while the FTC can review and approve rules set forth by HISA and can suggest modifications, it cannot promulgate rules itself and has no power over authority members and their terms. This prompts the question of if the FTC has sufficient authority over HISA. In the NHBPA case, Judge Hendrix said that based on how the law is currently written, HISA is subordinate to the FTC because only the FTC can approve its rules and because the adjudicative process does satisfy due process.

Another question that could come forward in the current court cases concerns anti-commandeering, meaning that Congress cannot take over a state's governing apparatus and force it to do its bid. Liebman said the court must determine if HISA would cause states to lose their ability to fund their racing integrity programs and if it would strip law enforcement agencies into federal service via mandatory cooperation. Liebman admitted that this issue alone will likely not lead to a total invalidation of HISA and its power.

Liebman listed several changes that could be made to HISA to help it defend its constitutionality including ending the mandatory cooperation clause, giving the FTC power over Authority member terms and the ability to remove members, giving the FTC greater authority over rules or even the ability to promulgate rules itself, and making all or nearly all Authority members unaffiliated with the racing industry.

“Even if the higher courts change the concepts of delegation and public control of private regulatory power, it's hard to envision that most of HISA cannot be salvaged because it is so much like FINRA,” he said. “It is unimaginable that a court ruling would take a wrecking ball to the current system of financial regulation in the country. Maybe the Authority doesn't always win and maybe it won't get what it wants, but it is likely that it will get what it needs.”

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