CHARLESTON, S.C. (Thursday, April 20, 2017) — Jeff Colliton has
an agenda item he wants accomplished during his one-year term as chairman of
the Association of Racing Commissioners International.
And the Gonzaga University graduate from Spokane, Wash., really
doesn’t want to wait to the end of his term as chair to declare victory.
“I hope it’s by the end of the day on Thursday,” joked Colliton,
the Washington Horse Racing Commission chair who assumed the ARCI chairmanship
from Louisiana’s Judy Wagner at the organization’s membership meeting. “By the
end of the day, everybody will know it’s Gon-ZAGG-a and it’s located in
Spo-CAN.”
Michael J. Hopkins, the longtime executive director of the
Maryland Racing Commission, moved from ARCI treasurer to chair-elect, with Dr.
Corinne Sweeney of the Pennsylvania State Horse Racing Commission elected the
new treasurer as the three-day conference on Equine Welfare and Racing
Integrity came to a close.
Elected to the board were: Sweeney; Robert Lopez, Washington
Horse Racing Commission; John F. Wayne, Delaware Thoroughbred Racing
Commission; Tom Sage, Nebraska State Racing Commission; David Lermond, Virginia Racing Commission; Dr. David Kangaloo, Trinidad &
Tobago Racing Authority; Edward C.
Menton, Mobile County Racing Commission; Charles A. Gardiner III, Louisiana State Racing Commission; Marc A. Guilfoil, Kentucky Horse
Racing Commission; Larry Eliason, South Dakota Commission on Gaming; Steve Suttie; Canadian Pari-Mutuel
Agency; Dan Hartman, Colorado Racing Commission; Frank Zanzuccki, New Jersey
Racing Commission; Rob Williams, New York State Gaming Commission, and Rick
Baedeker, California Horse Racing Board.
Colliton, a Vietnam veteran who last
year was inducted into the U.S. Army ROTC National Hall of Fame for
Distinguished Civilian Service, retired from the military as a full colonel
after serving 26 years as a helicopter pilot and active-duty officer. Having
attended Gonzaga University (class of 1962) on a baseball scholarship, Colliton
recently fulfilled a “bucket-list” item by traveling with Susan, his wife of 50
years, to see their beloved Zags in the NCAA basketball title game, only to get
nipped in the final strides by North Carolina after a protracted stretch duel.
Part of Colliton’s college scholarship requirement was to have a
part-time job. You could say his regulatory career in racing began then at the
old Playfair Race Course, when he collected urine from horses during post-race
testing - known as being the pee-catcher — until getting a job with the
photo-finish operator. But Colliton’s racetrack experience began as a tyke,
when an aunt and uncle would take him to the races at Playfair, Yakima Meadows
and sometimes Longacres near Seattle.
Later, he and his wife, Susan, would partner in owning horses
with Colliton’s dad. He has been a pizza-tavern owner, a certified mediator and
was on the city council for one term “and the people of Spokane decided I
needed another profession,” Colliton said with a laugh. Two years later,
however, he was appointed to the Washington Horse Racing Commission, where he
has served almost a decade.
Of being ARCI chair, Colliton said, “My first indication,
whenever I take over a chairman of something, is not to walk in and change
things. In the military, I always told the people who work for me and the
people I worked for, ‘Press the listen button rather than the talk button.’”
The military influence has permeated his subsequent professional
life.
“I think it’s a bit of the organization and structure that you
learn from being a young lieutenant going through processes, and you learn from
those who don’t, in my opinion, do things right and those who do things right,”
he said. “You learn to treat your subordinates with the respect they are due.
You learn to let the staff do their work and step in when you think they might
need a little advice.”
Colliton thanked the membership for his selection and
congratulated Wagner on her productive term. He also congratulated the compact
ARCI staff, headed by president Ed Martin, on the conference.
“There have been a lot of remarks about the different panels and
how well-organized and meaningful they were,” he said. “It’s a function of your
staff, and I look forward to working with you.”
Also Thursday:
On efforts to replace or modify the rules pertaining to the use
of the whip and riding crop, the ARCI’s model-rules committee voted to create a
subcommittee of regulators to consider separate proposals submitted by The
Jockey Club and the Jockeys’ Guild, along with extensive comments made at the
conference, to come up with language to strengthen and eliminate any
ambiguities in the existing model rule.
The membership voted to amend the model rules to make the
bronchodilator Clenbuterol a banned substance in Quarter Horse racing and for
mixed-breed racing, which would apply to a Thoroughbred competing in a race
against other breeds. Horses in such races testing positive for Clenbuterol
would not be allowed to compete for six months. The action was urged by the
American Quarter Horse Association.
The membership also approved the model
rule toward creating uniform veterinarian lists so that horses on the “vet’s
list” in one jurisdiction after they are scratched because of a soundness issue
are not able to run in another. Model regulations are those that the ARCI
crafts and encourages their member jurisdictions to approve in order to have
the same rules across the U.S. and Canada.
About ARCI: The Association of Racing
Commissioners International is the umbrella organization of the official
rule-making bodies for professional horse and greyhound racing in North America
and parts of the Caribbean. The RCI sets standards for racing regulation,
medication policy, drug-testing laboratories, totalizator systems, racetrack
operation and security, including for off-track wagering entities. RCI’s
members are the only independent entities recognized to license, enforce and
adjudicate matters pertaining to racing. While the RCI, a not-for-profit trade
association, has no regulatory authority, its members individually possess
regulatory authority within their jurisdictions and solely determine whether or
not to adopt RCI recommendations and policies and rules.
