Central body for horse racing mulled Posted on June 21st
Yesterday morning, Jan Schakowsky, chairwoman of a U.S. House subcommittee on commerce, trade and consumer protection, cut right to the chase.
“What is going on here?” Schakowsky, a former thoroughbred horse owner, asked a panel of horse racing luminaries. “What is happening to the Sport of Kings?”
Yesterday’s congressional hearing was titled “Breeding, Drugs and Breakdowns: The State of Thoroughbred Horseracing and the Welfare of the Thoroughbred Racehorse.” But the true topic quickly became apparent.
“Does horse racing need a central governing authority?” Schakowsky (D., Ill.) asked in her opening remarks. “Is the horse racing industry truly capable of making reforms on its own?”
The heads of the Jockey Club and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, while acknowledging the need for reforms, especially on drug issues, said the sport was equipped to clean itself up. However, several top horse owners, a Hall of Fame trainer, and the head of California’s racing commission called for a national governing body to be formed.
“Our structure is dysfunctional,” said Richard Shapiro, chairman of the California Horse Racing Board. “I submit we need a national racing commission.”
The sport has never had such a central authority, with 38 states adopting their own rules. Congressmen continually stressed that horse racing is within their domain.
“Congress is already involved,” Schakowsky said, pointing out that under the Interstate Horse Racing Act of 1978, the sport is granted “unique status. Unlike any other gambling operation in America, they are allowed to transmit their racing product across state lines and receive wagers from bettors outside a state.”
Schakowsky said 90 percent of the $15.4 billion wagers on horse racing is from simulcast betting.
The death of Eight Belles, after finishing second in the Kentucky Derby, was a catalyst in this call for action, even though tests showed the filly from Delaware Park wasn’t administered steroids. The death of Eight Belles came up only briefly, from Schakowsky, who talked of the horse’s pedigree and said the horse was “a genetic disaster waiting to happen.”
Yesterday’s hearing took an overview look at the entire racing landscape, and the underbelly of it, with witnesses testifying about claiming horses running with drugs injected in their joints, souped-up racing surfaces on big race days, state racing commissions having very little transparency in their testing and procedures, trainers getting slaps on the wrist for drug offenses, and veterinarians who do more than treat maladies.
Shapiro talked of the conflict of interest of vets who “often examine horses for free and only charge for the medication.”
Jess Jackson, the principal owner of Curlin, the world’s top-ranked thoroughbred, called for owners to have a greater role in all decision-making. Jackson also said Curlin represents “a horse that can run without drugs” since he won March’s Dubai World Cup drug-free, as the typical drugs used throughout American racing are banned there. “Not that he didn’t in the past,” Jackson commented about the 2007 Preakness and Breeders’ Cup winner.
At this point, 11 of the 38 states with horse racing, including Pennsylvania and Delaware, have adopted rules against steroids, but trainers point out that penalties vary from state to state. And insiders say steroids are just one problem.
“It’s like chemical warfare,” testified Jack Van Berg, who won the 1987 Kentucky Derby and Preakness with Alysheba, but said the integrity of the sport has been compromised. “It’s gotten out of hand. . . . The horse can’t tell you that he doesn’t want to take them.”
Van Berg wants to see several regional “sophisticated” testing centers established, paid for by simulcasting revenues. Otherwise, he said, some states won’t devote enough resources for top-level testing.
In his testimony, Jackson called for anti-steroid policies to extend to “including everything that alters the appearance of a horse at a sale.”
Alex Waldrop, president of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association - “we serve the industry as a consensus builder,” he said - cited the movement against steroids as a sign that the industry can police itself.
Arthur Hancock, co-owner of Kentucky Derby winners Gato Del Sol and Sunday Silence, had another view. He talked of a “rudderless ship” with “Nero-like” leaders of separate fiefdoms.
“Performance-enhancing drugs must be banned if we are going to survive as an industry,” Hancock said.
Earlier this week, the Jockey Club’s “thoroughbred safety” committee, featuring many of the industry’s movers and shakers, announced that it was recommending the elimination of steroids in race training and racing, a ban on a type of horseshoe called a toe grab, and a series of whip-related reforms, all aimed at improving safety and integrity.
It was noted during the hearing by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R., Ky.) that there was rare bipartisan support in Congress for action on these issues. Another legislator predicted during the hearing that there would be at least one more hearing and an eventual bill written.
“I think we’re going to see some movement,” Rep. Joe Pitts (R., Pa.) said. “I don’t know exactly what is going to come out of this. Perhaps we’ll get a body like the NFL for horse racing, I don’t know. That’s very, very possible.”
During the hearing, the gadflies had an easier time of it than the establishment figures.
Asked why he thought horse racing could clean itself up, Alan Marzelli, president of the Jockey Club, said: “For starters, I’m an optimist.”
“Based on what?” Schakowsky immediately asked.
Contact staff writer Mike Jensen at 215-854-4489 or mjensen@phillynews.com.