The headline in The Blood-Horse last Friday (December 24) - ‘HISA Announces Suspension of Negotiations with USADA’ - was marginally better (as in, less discouraging) than the one TDN ran the same day - ‘USADA Unable To Reach a Deal with HISA Authority’.
Both TDN and The Blood-Horse were running the statement that the authority is evaluating options for engagement with “other leading independent enforcement agencies”.
Unfortunately, there is no other realistic option. The HISA legislation may define USADA’s role as an enforcement agency, but it has a much broader role than an enforcement agency.
Here is a statement from USADA in its 2020 annual report published right after the HISA legislation was passed in December 2020.
Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act passed into law
The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act passed in December, signifying the beginning of a new era in the long history of the horseracing industry. The landmark legislation will establish a uniform regulatory approach to better protect horses and jockeys, as well as [to] bolster the strength and fairness of the sport.
The bipartisan legislation was originally introduced as the Thoroughbred Horseracing Integrity Act of 2015 and evolved over the years to be passed in its current form. The program will be managed by an independent authority in charge of enforcing a new set of regulations designed to ensure the integrity of the sport.
USADA has been assigned the anti-doping responsibilities detailed in the Act and will implement uniform rules through an independent model in service of clean competition and participant safety. Throughout 2021 and beyond, USADA and the relevant authorities will establish and manage a robust system that includes education, testing, results management and investigation.
This sounds like a much broader scope than an enforcement agency to me.
Working together, HISA and USADA were intending to replace inefficient, poorly run individual state regulatory authorities with one federal authority to manage all regulatory aspects of Thoroughbred racing.
I have worked in a number of major racing companies over the last 20-plus years, including (in chronological order) New York Racing Association (NYRA) board member, Daily Racing Form (President and CEO), NYRA (President and CEO), Jockey Club member, and publisher and co-owner of Thoroughbred Racing Commentary. Make no mistake, if HISA and USADA cannot find a way to get their relationship back on track, we will not have an industry to save a decade from now.
In the past half-dozen years, I have spent much more time writing about racing participants “taking an edge” - a polite phrase for cheating. No racing entity has spent more time, money and focus on cheating in Thoroughbred racing than the Jockey Club. I would like to walk you through speakers at the annual Jockey Club Round Table conferences who have addressed this topic over the last decade.
All the presentations, the transcripts of the written speeches are available to view on the Round Table website.
Words that resonate now
First, Travis Tygart, President of USADA, spoke in 2012 on “Preserving Your Rights and the Integrity of Competition”. Here are a few words from that talk that resonate with the current situation:
“In conclusion, I just want to say, hopefully, our experiences in the Olympic movement over the past few years, really since late 1999, can be an example for you all. You heard it … again this morning, the ratings for the Olympics today on those earlier announcements about the money revenues that the Olympics have generated.
“I think anti-doping has to take some credit for that, because I think, when the integrity was being diluted back in the late 90s, the world of Olympic sport alongside governments said what can we do to recapture the magic? And similar discussion and analysis that you all have done over the past couple years took place. While it took about four years from 99 to 2004 before those uniform rules came into existence and were adopted by everyone and agreed by everyone, it has shown, I think, significance since then.”
Moses: ‘We stand willing and ready’
At the 2015 Round Table, Edwin Moses, USADA Chairman and Olympic 400-meter hurdles champion of 1976 and 1980, spoke on “The Anti-Doping Matrix and the Degree of Effectiveness”.
“Over the last 35 years I’ve had a front-row seat to see … the changes in Olympic anti-doping, and I can tell you all the challenges and growing pains that inevitably come from serious fundamental changes are worth it.
“It is absolutely worth it to protect the economic future of the sport and the health and safety of those who participate.
“At USADA, we stand ready to help as we can and to help share our experiences to bring an anti-doping program here to the sport of horseracing, and I appreciate what you said, Governor Beshear, about the willingness and the need and the fortitude that it’s going to take to make this a successful program.
“We at USADA stand willing and ready to put together a program that everyone in the sport can be proud of.”
Strong relationship
A year later, Jeff Novitsky, Vice President of Ultimate Fighting Championship, spoke at the Round Table on the UFC anti-doping policy, which was administered and managed by USADA.
Finally, at the 2021 Round Table, Charles Scheeler, Chairman of HISA, and Tessa Muir, Director of Equine Science of USADA, both gave encouraging presentations on the work and relationships that were being developed between HISA and USADA.
Certainly, over the past decade, a strong relationship has been developed between the Jockey Club and USADA, and, while the sporting events for each entity are quite different, there is a lot of common ground that horseracing and athletics can share for their mutual benefit.
Here are some of the early paragraphs of some brilliant reporting by Gus Garcia-Roberts of the Washington Post in an article on April 29, 2021, entitled, “With private eyes and political muscle, horseracing’s elite pushed to punish dopers.”
“Before dawn on March 9, 2020, federal agents swarmed [Scott A] Robinson’s Florida home, along with houses, barns and offices of dozens of others around the country. Soon after, prosecutors unsealed indictments against 29 trainers, veterinarians and others on charges related to supplying and administering performance-enhancing drugs to the animals.
“The plan’s lead orchestrator was Stuart Janney III, a chairman of a Manhattan-based wealth management firm and the son of a famed Maryland horseman.
“In late 2015, Janney decided that, if the industry and elected officials wouldn’t act, the Jockey Club would. He envisioned a private investigation that would expose widespread doping in the sport. However, Travis Tygart suggested a more formidable force. 5 Stones Intelligence was, at the time, secretly playing a central role in uncovering Russian state-sponsored doping of its athletes.
“The intelligence agency was founded by David Tinsley, a former DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] supervisor known for pursuits of some of the most sophisticated criminals on the planet. 5 Stones’ pitch involved honing in on those making excess profits from [performance-enhancing drugs], Janney recalled, by analyzing the assets of veterinarians and others in the industry. “It was all about the dark web,” Janney said, and “cyber stuff”.
“But, when it was time, 5 Stones Intelligence was well placed to turn the investigation into federal indictments. Not only is it staffed with former federal agents, but the private company has in years been awarded millions of dollars worth of business with the Department of Justice and other U.S. agencies.”
“The day that the indictments were made public, the Jockey Club issued a news release declaring: “From this point forward, it will be critical to the future of the sport that the reforms that are so badly needed are pressed forward by all segments of the industry.”
Trust and collaboration
Clearly there has been a lot of trust and collaboration between the Jockey Club and USADA and between Janney and Tygart, specifically which I hope could be favorably brought to bear on the impasse of the relationship between the HISA and USADA.
This excerpt below is from an article written by Ray Paulick and published in the Paulick Report on September 1, 2021. Paulick has done an excellent job in his conversation with Dr Tessa Muir, who was recently hired by USADA specifically to work with HISA in the position of Director of Equine Science. Dr Muir worked as a veterinarian in both the UK and Australia and, in the UK, she held the position of anti-doping manager. Sadly, here in the U.S., the racing industry to my knowledge has no position of anti-doping manager, presumably because no one wants to admit that there is any doping in U.S. racing.
Paulick begins:
“How will equine medication rules and enforcement be different once the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority becomes the federally mandated regulatory body for Thoroughbred racing next year?
“For starters, for the first time, regulations related to medication, testing and enforcement will be uniform in every racing state. That's a tremendous achievement in itself.
“Efforts to form uniform rules go back decades to the days of the National Association of State Racing Commissioners (predecessor of the Association of Racing Commissioners International). There has been incremental progress, through development of model rules that only went into effect if individual state racing commissions and sometimes legislators bought into them. Too often they didn't adopt them as written.
“The enabling legislation creating the authority, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, overcomes those hurdles. The authority is a non-governmental agency that will have federal oversight from the Federal Trade Commission, especially in its formative stage. Prior to July 2022, when the authority is scheduled to be operational, the FTC will be required to accept, reject or amend the rules that the authority is now developing to regulate medication and safety policies.”
“Dr Tessa Muir, who joined the United States Anti-Doping Agency as head of its newly created equine program earlier this year, is part of the team developing those regulations. While USADA does not yet have a contract with the authority, it’s fully expected that it will be the agency named to that position, enforcing anti-doping policies in much the way it does for athletes in the Olympics, Paralympics and UFC fighters from the world of mixed martial arts.
“Muir has worked as a regulatory veterinarian with Racing Victoria in Australia and, before then, spent six years with the British Horseracing Authority as a veterinarian assistant and anti-doping manager.
“We are diligently working with the authority,” Muir said in an interview with the Paulick Report. “The core rules that we are developing will form the basis of the program. Implementation is that final step in bringing HISA to reality.”
Harsh reality
I have a few comments to share that the USADA and HISA parties might consider as ways to meet in the middle of whatever impasse has been reached.
First, I am sure that both parties realize and hopefully appreciate that the window of time from the passing of the legislation to launching the business is approximately 18 months and should clearly have been a minimum of 24, but that cannot change. This must be putting strain on both entities as the deadlines loom. Second, I have no insight as to the factors behind the impasse. However, differences of opinions and differences on budgets and money could be very real.
However, while this is not a problem of anyone’s making on either side, the harsh reality is, if the two parties cannot find a clear path forward, there are no “other leading independent enforcement agencies” that can properly fill the void.
Finally, we have reached the point where the state regulatory agencies cannot manage their legislative responsibilities. The indictments of the Jorge Navarro/Jason Servis et al parties clearly demonstrate that the states of New York, New Jersey, Florida, Ohio and Kentucky had no clue of the massive illegal activities that were and probably continue to take place at their racetracks on a regular basis.
It is important to keep in mind that the court stated that Navarro alone was responsible for $25.8 million in restitution, which is unlikely to be repaid. However, if Navarro had not been cheating, that money would have been paid to deserving owners.
In addition, the court did order Navarro to pay $75,000 in restitution, bringing the total restitution from these cases to $13,099,784. Keep in mind that, in 2019 alone, Servis’s and Navarro’s combined purses won totalled $17,894,651, most of which were ill gotten gains and should have been paid to proper owners. Investing in better regulation seems a smart investment.
If the USADA/HISA business arrangement does not get done, I cannot imagine that horseracing and breeding has a future in the U.S.