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Lazarus Reviews ‘Ten Things I Learned’ In Early Days Of HISA

On Dec. 6, Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority CEO Lisa Lazarus took a look back at her first year in the role.

Originally, Lazarus' prompt for a presentation at the Annual Global Symposium on Racing had been the Authority's 2023 outlook, but after a surprise decision last month by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals declaring the Authority unconstitutional, that no longer seemed quite right.

Instead, she presented the ten lessons she has learned about racing so far.

Lazarus came to her position in the Authority after establishing the Equestrian Law practice within Morgan Sports Law, and previously served as general counsel for the Fédération Equestre Internationale, the international governing body for equestrian sports. Although she came in with some familiarity with horse sport, racing was new to her at the outset of the job.

What she learned:

-One of racing's strengths is the diversity of viewpoints – on HISA, and on everything else. Lazarus said she doesn't even mind that this means a lot of debate among industry insiders, and she knows that's unlikely to change.

“We're a colorful family,” she said. “We're fractured by geography, sometimes by tradition, by rules in place, and we share those divisions publicly.

“Like real families, let's fight like hell behind closed doors but let's present a unified voice to the public.”

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-All participants in the industry have a role to play in making it better – and that includes groups that have been critical of the Authority, like trainers, farriers, and jockeys. Lazarus said this is why she instituted the Authority's horsemen's advisory group earlier this year with the hopes of making sure all viewpoints are included in rulemaking going forward.

-“Racing can only achieve its full potential by taking advantage of its greatest resource – the people who spend their days at the track, on the backstretch, who are truly in the game,” she said. “They are truly our greatest treasure.”

-Criticism is not just expected, but welcomed.

“I learned I love the people who tell me they hate our horseshoe rule, or we shouldn't disqualify horses from purses [for whip violations] or our drug rules go too far…because they're talking to me,” she said. “They're engaging. They're helping to make HISA and this industry better.”

-Lazarus said she was particularly struck by the vulnerability of jockeys, who must trust each time they get on a horse that the regulatory system has worked to reduce as much of that horse's injury risk as possible. While there has been, and will continue to be, much focus on equine safety for the sake of the horses, Lazarus reminded the audience that the most dangerous event for a jockey is the fall of an injured horse under them. She also said that jockey health initiatives via the racetrack safety program would continue to be a top priority for the Authority in 2023.

-As much debate as there has been about the Authority, the industry has begged for uniform medication regulation for years. The Authority is set to begin its anti-doping and medication program on Jan. 1.

“I believe that the vast majority of our racing participants compete fairly and they deserve to know the folks they're competing against are doing the same,” she said.

-The sport has already had an opportunity to regulate itself independently through the national compacts and national model rule organizations that have formed racing's alphabet soup in recent years. Lazarus said that voluntary system doesn't work.

“When I first took this job, I think it was my second month on the job, I went to meet with an important horsemen's group leader who shall remain nameless,” she said. “He said to me, I don't like federal legislation. I don't like the way HISA came about. But we did this to ourselves, because we never came together, we never agreed voluntarily to unite under one regulator. There's no sport in the world, in my view, that can survive with some of the most important integrity issues being managed by 28 different organizations.”

-Uniform rules aren't enough – they must be accompanied by uniform implementation.

In 2023, Lazarus anticipates that more harmonization in stewarding will come as officials become more used to the new regulations. She credits Marc Guilfoil, former Kentucky Horse Racing Commission executive director, with leading the charge thus far to help officials apply the Authority's rule in consistent ways across stewards' stands.

-Lazarus believes that the Authority should not be the focal point for the sport, that the regulators are neither the sport's talent nor its main story. Instead, she sees its eventual role as operating in the background to root out bad actors and give the sport a narrative focused on integrity.

-Most importantly, Lazarus said, the Authority is at a crucial crossroads, as is the whole industry.

“This is our moment in time,” she said. “This moment is very unlikely to ever replicate itself. We have an incredible group of people who are committed to doing the best for this industry. Not to making rules that complicate people's lives, not to being a top-down regulator, but to helping grow the industry through uniformity.”

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Martin: HISA Needs A Rewrite, Not A Midnight Quick Fix

“Don't make the same mistake twice,” ARCI President Ed Martin said in reaction to reports that Senator Mitch McConnell will make an effort to slip changes to the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) in to the Defense Appropriations Bill or Omnibus Spending bill.

“Such a move would be an acknowledgement that the original law was fatally flawed and undercuts HISA's assertions being made in court that it is on a sound legal foundation,” Martin said. There are oral arguments on another HISA challenge in a Sixth Circuit appeals court tomorrow. Dec. 7. A Fifth Circuit Federal Panel has unanimously declared HISA unconstitutional.

“It was a mistake to create HISA without going through Regular Order and it will be a double mistake to make changes without clearly assessing what's working and what is not and allowing Senators and Members of the House to weigh in. That means regular order,” Martin said.

There is no pending emergency that would require immediate Congressional action.

A midnight language change slipped in a bill is not going to end the court challenges.

HISA CEO Lisa Lazarus called for industry unity Tuesday morning at the Global Symposium on Racing.

“Based on my experience with this industry, that won't happen unless Senator McConnell pulls all factions into the room and forces them to come up with amendments that everyone can live with. Only then can one make the endless and costly lawsuits go away. To have one faction try to slam dunk what they think is some sort of fix is not a unifying move and Ms. Lazarus should publicly ask that regular order be the process to make amendments to Act,” Martin said. “That's the only way I see to get this right.”

The ARCI has stayed out of the pending court cases, although some States and RCI Members are involved in litigation as they have valid concerns about states rights, constitutionality, and commandeering.

“Our concern from the get go was that this not turn into a mess. We have tried to help to the extent we can and the extent to which HISA has allowed us,” Martin said.

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Voss: I’m Worried About The Lone Racing Veterinarian In The Classroom

I heard something at the recent annual convention of the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) that I found believable but horrifying.

I sat in on a discussion about the relationship between regulatory and private practice vets at the racetrack. What often happens at these types of discussions is there are two or three vets in charge of steering the conversations around a particular topic. People float in and out of the room, pass a microphone around, and ask the moderators questions on the topic. It's sort of a group discussion, but with better acoustics and without the crosstalk.

Inevitably, the topic of optics came up. The regulatory veterinarians in the room urged private vets to think about regulatory vets as partners instead of opponents. Everyone should want safe racing, to ensure racing can keep going. It seems the culture varies quite a bit from track to track, with some enjoying more communication and cooperation than others. Part of what's hobbling regulatory and practicing vets on the racetrack is of course that there just aren't enough of either of them to go around. That prompted a moderator to ask if there were any vet students in the full conference room. Three hands went up.

One belonged to a young woman whose name and school I did not catch. She said she was one of just three students in her graduating class of 96 or 97 veterinarians who wanted to go into equine practice. She was the only one who was interested in working in racing. She said she frequently has to justify to her choice to her classmates, explaining why she should want to support an industry that has as many ethical and integrity issues as they think we do.

The only one. Out of nearly 100.

This isn't one out of a group of 96 or 97 random people on the street. It's not one in a group of animal rights activists outside the Saratoga gates. It's one out of a group of highly educated, intelligent animal lovers, some of whom are also horse lovers.

That's terrifying to me. It should be terrifying to you, too.

It must be a very lonely position for that young woman. I wondered, as I sat in the back, how long she would persevere in what must be a regular argument with her classmates. She must anticipate, based on this experience, that she'll graduate, begin working long, thankless hours at the track and have to justify that choice to her colleagues – possibly colleagues at this actual event in future years – for as long as she has that job. How exhausting that must already feel.

I've been attending AAEP conventions for nearly a decade now. In the beginning, it reminded me a lot of being back in college because in the larger lectures I attended, I was mostly surrounded by other people my age, almost all of them young women, as per the typical demographics of veterinary graduates these days. (The difference was they didn't need to take notes because they're a lot smarter than I am.) When I'd go into racing-oriented sessions, I'd be outnumbered in the same way I usually am at racing commission meetings, sitting amongst men twice my age.

What I noticed this year, as I looked around in one of the larger ballrooms, is that the people around me haven't changed. I've gotten ten years older, but they haven't. A lot of them are still students or recent graduates. A few are older men. A handful are older women. The young ones are full of energy, popping in and out of as many sessions as they can. They seem so excited to be here – but a decade from now, it seems like many of them probably won't be.

Statistics would suggest that this is because a very small number of veterinary school graduates even embark on an equine-centric career, and the ones who do don't stay. AAEP data indicate only about 5 to 6 percent of any given class of veterinary graduates pursue equine practice, and that in five years, half of them will quit.

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If AAEP has done any research looking specifically at racing practice I haven't seen it, but I'm betting the number is even bleaker, considering that I see many of the same faces each year in those sessions.

(Caveat: I do recognize that part of the reason I see mostly students and older vets at convention with relatively few in their thirties and forties also has something to do with career phase. Students may more easily make time to leave town for a few days to attend, while vets a few years out of school are probably stuck at home, since they're the go-to people to pick up elder colleagues' shifts during meetings like this. Still, I can't believe this is the only reason I'm not seeing very many vets my age at this event.)

To their credit, AAEP and the various veterinary colleges have worked together, mobilizing with determination in the past year or two to remove barriers to equine practice at every conceivable level – state and federal tuition support, changing vet school entry requirements, creating support systems to help vets with work/life balance and to educate employers on those needs.

Trade media (ourselves included) have covered this topic extensively, trying to coach horse owners on the best ways they can reduce stress on their horse's veterinarian.

(You can read some of that coverage here, here, and here)

But I keep going back to that vet student and her classmates. AAEP, higher education facilities, and others can make it easier to become a vet; they can make it easier to be an equine-focused vet. But I would suggest that only racing, as a collective, can make it easier to be a racing vet by changing not just the outside world's perception of us – but the perception of fellow equestrians.

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Del Mar’s Bing Crosby Season: Finishing Strong

Josh Rubinstein, president and chief operating officer for the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, admits the autumn Bing Crosby Season is a “different dynamic” from the summer meet that runs from mid-July until early September.

“It's more of a challenge than summer,” said Rubinstein, 53, who has been at Del Mar since 1997. “People are back to work, back to school. And when it's 60 degrees here, it's a little chilly.”

Rubinstein isn't looking for sympathy from his counterparts back east, where race meets at this time of year can be interrupted by extreme weather, including ice and snow, and grass racing is winding down. That's one reason trainers like Graham Motion, Chad Brown, Todd Pletcher, Shug McGaughey and Christophe Clement are taking shots in some of the stakes that comprise the Autumn Turf Festival, which wraps up this weekend with the Grade 1 duo of the Hollywood Derby for 3-year-olds on Saturday and Sunday's Matriarch for fillies and mares, three and up. The festival's final weekend also features a pair of G3 turf stakes for 2-year-old fillies and 2-year-olds, the Jimmy Durante and Cecil B. DeMille, respectively. There are mandatory payouts on all wagers on Sunday, including the Pick 6, which had a large jackpot going into Saturday's card.

“Overall, we're pleased with the meet,” Rubinstein said. “Racing has been safe, which is our top priority, and the feedback we're getting on our surfaces has been very positive.”

The Del Mar summer meet established new records – not just for the seaside track near San Diego but for all of California – in daily average handle ($18.7 million), purses ($800,000 daily), and field size (9.1 runners per race).

But zero is the number Rubinstein and Del Mar CEO Joe Harper are proudest of. That's how many racing fatalities there were after nearly 3,000 starts during the summer meet. While there were two instances of horses sustaining a heart-attack type of sudden death following their races on the Crosby season's opening weekend Nov. 11-13, Del Mar has had no fatal musculoskeletal injuries in racing or training going into the final stretch.

“Over the last few years, we've spent over $3 million on maintenance of the main track and turf course,” Rubinstein said. “From a safety standpoint, the results speak for themselves.”

Since 2018, Del Mar has ranked in the upper echelon of North America's safest racetracks, according to statistics compiled by The Jockey Club's Equine Injury Database.

Field size is not quite where it was in summer, but the Crosby Season is what Rubinstein calls a “ship-in meet,” with the vast majority of horses staying at Santa Anita rather than relocating to Del Mar for the 13 racing days, then vanning south on the morning of their race. Only about 400 horses are stabled at Del Mar, compared to 2,000 during the summer.

“That's part of doing business in the fall,” he said. “Our field size is 7.8, and we've got big fields throughout the weekend. Tom Robbins and David Jerkens put together incredibly strong cards this weekend, so that should get us well over eight (starters per race).”

The fall meet is in its ninth season, necessitated by the closure of Hollywood Park in 2013. Santa Anita extended its winter-spring meet to absorb some of the lost summer dates from Hollypark's demise, with Los Alamitos also stepping up to run some Thoroughbred dates.

“We need to operate a fall meet so California has a healthy circuit on a year-round basis,” Rubinstein said. “Sometimes you hear 'the sky is falling in California,' and there are certainly some things we can improve upon. It's always a challenge to stay competitive, but we are seeing positive trends. The horse recruitment programs that we've implemented in recent years are working, with about 15 percent of our starters last summer due to that recruitment. Ship and Win had a lot to do with that, so the good news is those horses stay in California, which helps not just Del Mar but Santa Anita and Los Alamitos as well.”

The coronavirus pandemic that hit in 2020 affected racing throughout the world. As a track that thrives on large crowds and big promotions, Del Mar had to make adjustments to its marketing program.

Concerts were a big part of that program, but they obviously were eliminated in 2020. In 2021, Rubinstein said, there was uncertainty about what would be permitted on-track when it came time to booking music acts, so a decision was made not to schedule concerts for the summer.

“In 2022, the concert market was so hot that music acts were two or three times as costly as they had been previously,” Rubinstein said. “Our model with those shows had a slim profit margin, so we just couldn't make it work. We'll consider concerts in 2023, but it's a different market than it was pre-pandemic. Plus there are new venues in town that would be competition, including an 1,800-seat venue here (on the Del Mar fair grounds property run by the 22nd District Agricultural Association) that our booking promoter, Belly Up, is involved with.”

Other promotions were brought back in 2021 and '22, including college days, craft beer festivals and local food events.

“Those have a smaller footprint than the concerts but most of those events sold out with 2,500 to 3,000 people,” Rubinstein said. Those promotions followed non-traditional marketing strategies to reach a younger crowd.

“We have a robust database that we use to target our core racing customers, but the people in Gen Z, Gen Y and Millennials that aren't necessarily racing fans are not consuming traditional media of TV, radio, and print,” he said. “The bulk of our marketing for them was social and digital. We also invested pretty heavily in influencer campaigns. We'll get the results of that soon, but the preliminary results have been good.”

Another benefit to the Bing Crosby Season has been to establish Del Mar as host for the highly successful Breeders' Cup World Championships in 2017 and '21. Rubinstein said Del Mar has put in a bid to host again, as soon as 2024.

“We have ongoing conversations with Drew Fleming (Breeders' Cup CEO) and his team,” he said. “We've had two great events here, and not just great racing. San Diego is a perfect location with many high-quality hotel rooms and restaurants, and there's great weather. Similar to Keeneland, the community really gets behind it. Local leaders and businesses keep asking, 'When is it coming back?'”

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