Developments in Ireland designed to
bolster out of competition testing and the exclusion of certain horses
underscores the need for the US racing industry to support ARCI’s call last
December for an expansion of regulatory authority over horses who have yet to
come under the jurisdiction of a racing commission, according to the group’s
President.
“We applaud Horse Racing Ireland and
its chief Brian Kavanagh for their creative effort to get access to horses on
unlicensed grounds,” said ARCI President Ed Martin.
Last December the ARCI made a general
call to expand the government’s authority in order to close what many
regulators consider to be a major loophole in independent oversight of the
un-regulated aspects of the race horse industry. The impetus for
that proposal came from the reported widespread use of bisphosphonates in young
horses despite government warnings that such use may not be safe.
Consistent with this general call, ARCI
President Ed Martin, in written testimony before a congressional subcommittee
earlier this year, offered several suggestions to Members of Congress seeking
to help the racing industry.
Martin proposed:
•
Requiring all horses bred to be racehorses be
registered with and come under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture’s
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)
•
Empowering APHIS to make rules affecting young
horses not yet under the jurisdiction of a state racing commission
•
Directing APHIS to contract with state racing
commissions for the purpose of out-of-competition equine welfare and
anti-doping examinations to determine adherence to the APHIS rules
•
Authorizing APHIS to recover costs for such
inspections from the owners of any horse inspected, consistent with state
racing commission contracts entered into for that purpose
•
Require that a portion of the existing funds -
$9.5 million - appropriated by Congress each year for anti-doping programs
through the White House Office of National Drug Policy be available to fund
anti-doping research of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium consistent
with anti-doping needs identified by the Organization of Racing Investigators
or the ARCI
The limitations on regulatory authority
as well as equine welfare concerns about the use of Bisphosphonate drugs on young
horses were main topics at the ARCI Integrity and Animal Welfare Conference
last April in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
The ARCI has not taken a formal
position on Martin’s suggestions but is open to working with appropriate
industry organizations to develop ways to regulate young horses and address
specific jurisdictional limitations where they occur.
US Federal Law grants wide authority to
licensed veterinarians to use substances in horses that have been approved by
the FDA for other species. That authority continues even if the
government has issued cautionary statements. This broad
authority affects not only the use of bisphosphonates on young horses but also
the steroids that have triggered the actions of Horse Racing Ireland.
None of the federal bills proposed
during the last decade affecting horse racing address this issue.
