“The political divide that currently
exists in the racing industry is destructive to the sport,” said current ARCI
Chairman Mark Lamberth, who indicated “significant progress has been made and
continues to be made on a variety of fronts to implement agreed upon reforms”.
He noted that the ARCI Compliance Committee that he formed earlier this year
has identified the issues in specific jurisdictions that have been an obstacle
to achieving uniformity.
“We believe it is time to take a
holistic approach to these issues and develop a consensus on how to achieve
this,” said ARCI President Ed Martin, who noted that current legislative
proposals being put forth were formulated without a regulator or industry
consensus.
To that end, the ARCI will hold “Town
Meeting” forums across the U.S. with racing industry stakeholders, participants
and fans in an attempt to find common ground and a workable solution to the
problems the industry faces.
Individual regulatory agencies have
often relied upon this approach to create policies in their jurisdictions. This
will mark the first time that this approach will be done on a national basis in
regions across the country by the regulators working in conjunction with
racetracks, breeders, horsemen, stakeholder entities, legislators and fans.
Incoming ARCI Chairwoman Judy Wagner
said that “everything is on the table and we firmly believe there is common
ground to be found to achieve common goals.”
The ARCI Board did not rule in or out
possible federal legislation yet to be drafted. Board members indicated that
legislation may not be necessary and the powers and ability to achieve agreed
upon goals may already exist under current federal and state laws.
“Everyone needs to be creative and
flexible as to how we achieve this,” Martin said.
