LEXINGTON, KY - The
President of the Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI) today
predicted that the currently unregulated horse breeding industry will
ultimately be folded into any federal racing legislation that advances in
Washington.
“I fully anticipate that as current
proposals advance in the legislative process, Members of Congress will heed
comments made by a key supporter of federal intervention about the practices of
Thoroughbred breeders that may be contributing to an inappropriate reliance on drugs,” Ed Martin
said. Prior to becoming involved with racing regulatory matters,
Martin served as a senior aide on Capitol Hill for almost a decade.
The President of the Humane Society
of the United States and a member of The Jockey Club’s coalition, Wayne
Pacelle, wrote in a July 20, 2015 column published on the animal welfare
website thedodo.com the following:
“Doping horses
for racing is more dangerous today than ever because breeding practices — which select for
speed and champagne-glass legs —
make the horses less sturdy and more vulnerable to breakdowns than they
were even 10 or 20 years ago.”
The Thoroughbred breeding industry
and related sales companies are not currently regulated by the states, creating
a void that Martin predicted Congress would fill given the universal concern
about Thoroughbred racing breakdowns.
Martin noted that state racing
commission medication reforms already implemented are starting to reduce
catastrophic injuries in some jurisdictions as reported by Kentucky Governor
Steve Beshear at The Jockey Club’s Roundtable conference this past weekend.
He predicted that unregulated sales
company medication policies that permit the stacking of non-steroidal
anti-inflammatory drugs and corticosteroids to be used on horses going through
the auction ring could be considered permissive. “I predict that
Members of Congress will want to know why drugs need to be given to horses that
have never raced and have not been injured,”
he said.
The ARCI President said that if a
state were to expand the jurisdiction of an ARCI member commission to regulate
the breeding industry and sales companies, the association would begin working
on Model Rules to assist that agency in meeting the legislative mandate.
To date, that has not happened.
