I'm getting a stiff neck watching the back-and-forth volleying between the anti-HISA and pro-HISA teams.
The National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, with financial support from anti-federal government think-tanks, have rolled out a steady beat of commentaries designed to call into question the fairness and constitutionality of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act passed by Congress in 2020. Some of those opposed to HISA have entered the gaslight district by saying stricter safety and anti-doping rules are actually bad for the health and welfare of horses.
Proponents of HISA, led by The Jockey Club – which spent years and millions of dollars trying to get the enabling legislation passed – have countered many of the claims made by the anti-HISA camp.
The latest salvo was fired by former trainer and now-attorney Darrell Vienna, claiming that HISA has “declared war on owners” by giving them no review process when their horse is suspended from racing because of a medication violation. We published that article yesterday without fact-checking the claims Vienna made.
Lisa Lazarus, chief executive officer of HISA, rebutted Vienna's claims point by point in a followup email. Rather than putting another round of volleys on our website, I made the decision to unpublish the Vienna article.
Going forward, the Paulick Report will no longer publish commentaries or letters to the editor on whether HISA is constitutional. That will be decided by the U.S. judicial system, more specifically the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. If the Fifth Circuit rules that HISA is unconstitutional, we'll have a tie because the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has already ruled the law – with amended language approved by Congress last year – is constitutional. The Supreme Court could have the final say. Until that time, all the arguing back and forth in public forums like this is just noise.
I'm a proponent of HISA and have advocated for stricter, national regulatory oversight of racing for many years. But I have to admit that a little bit of a dog-that-caught-the-car feeling entered my mind when HISA went into effect in phases in 2022 and earlier this year. It has not been a perfect rollout, and I've had doubts that a startup operation like HISA and its enforcement affiliate, the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit, could pull this off. It has been a major undertaking, even without considering the lack of cooperation in many states and the multiple lawsuits filed by the HBPA and some racetracks.
For the benefit of this industry's future, this has to work. There can be no going back to the state-by-state oversight that was exposed as completely ineffective by the federal investigation that led to prison time for some of Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing's biggest names. That is a terrible stain on what was then the status quo.
A major mistake in the original structure of HISA was the absence of a sounding board, people with real world experience and expertise with Thoroughbreds and racing. The subsequent creation of a Horsemen's Advisory Group that includes active trainers, owners, veterinarians, and racetrack officials corrected that original error. Lazarus and the HISA board have learned from that committee and adjusted or amended some of the regulations that many thought were unfair.
Not everyone on the Horsemen's Advisory Group is a HISA supporter. But even they accept, for now at least, that it's the law, and it's more productive for them to work to make it better for everyone than to draw a line in the sand and fight.
The industry would be better served if the HBPA and its anti-HISA followers struck a more cooperative tone publicly, offering constructive input and saving the constitutional arguments for the courts.
That's my view from the eighth pole.
The post View From The Eighth Pole: Save HISA Constitutional Arguments For The Courts appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
