The Association of Racing Commissioners International is
disappointed that the sponsors of the re-introduced federal legislation have
totally ignored the needs articulated on behalf of those responsible for
policing the sport of horse racing.
The sponsors of this legislation have proposed nothing to address
the significant part of the race horse industry that is totally unregulated.
This bill will do nothing to protect horses. It is
shocking that the use of bisphosphonates on young horses is not addressed given
the significant concern that they adversely affect bone development in young
horses and contribute to stress fractures as they do in other mammals.
We already know stress fractures can be a precursor to increased
risk of a catastrophic breakdown. This issue was
presented to lawmakers at the public hearing on this proposal in the last
Congress, yet they continue to focus on repealing a long standing equine
welfare program permitting a controlled furosemide administration on race day
proven to be helpful to the health of the horse and recently affirmed by a
consensus statement from the independent American College of Veterinary
Internal Medicine.
Unfortunately, the constructive suggestions of what the federal
government could do to safeguard horses and help integrity efforts in racing
continue to be ignored. Here are the suggestions that were
presented in my testimony last year.
The federal government could -
- Require 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) which would have the ARCI maintain this data for use jointly by
APHIS and the state racing commissions;
- Empower APHIS to make
rules affecting young horses not yet under the jurisdiction of a state
racing commission;
- Direct APHIS to contract
with state racing commissions for the purpose of out-of-competition equine
welfare examinations to determine adherence to the APHIS rules;
- Authorize APHIS to
recover costs for such inspections from the owners of any horse inspected,
consistent with state racing commission contracts entered into for this
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;
- Adopt the ARCI Model
Rules affecting equine welfare and medication by reference, thereby
achieving universal uniformity in regulation;
- Require the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to
each dedicate at least one agent for the sole purpose of assisting state
racing commissions in the conduct of investigations, particularly those
that cross jurisdictional lines. Note: The FDA already has
such an investigator assigned.
