Ed Martin, president of the International Association of Horse Racing Commissioners, told the Illinois Jockey Board on Dec. .
HISA was created by Congress to take over the administration of horse racing in the United States — tasks currently performed by state equestrian commissions. Draft racetrack safety rules have been submitted to the board of directors. The drug-related rules will go into effect before the end of the year. Cost considerations will be resolved in 2022, the HISA representative said on December 9 during a presentation to the International Association of Racing Commissioners’ Draft Rules Committee.
HISA Officials: Beware of Assumptions about Rules
The HISA representative said the July 1, 2022 deadline set by the National Assembly for the agency to be established and operated, but certain elements will be implemented in phases, according to the HISA representative. . All safety rules will be effective immediately, however, the US Anti-Doping Agency’s role in drug enforcement will begin only with out-of-competition investigation and testing. Post-race testing as it will survive USADA has been pushed to 2023.
Martin warned the IRB that legislators in Illinois and in other racing states could see the rollout as an opportunity to ditch racing sponsorship management and instead shift the costs to the industry itself.
HISA staff are responsible for communicating with state racing commissions to determine state-by-state what duties will continue to be performed by state staff in accordance with federal regulations and what will be assigned to an individual driver. new enforcement agency, Martin said.
HISA has yet to contract with the enforcement agency and is completely unaware of the costs, he added. In states where duties such as collecting out-of-competition prototypes, enforcing and adjudicating matters are assigned to HISA, that state’s “covered entities” in the racing industry will be cost assessment — whatever that is defined.
“The $64,000 question,” he said, “is ‘How much does all of this cost? “It’s time to know that and it’s time to start operational negotiations with the states about how it actually works.”
Another question is how will state legislators react when they realize they may be able to transfer some of the costs of race management from the state commission budget to industry participants as a handover from HISA, Martin said.
He told the board: “There are a number of states that are in serious financial difficulty that could say the federal government passed a bill that says we don’t have to do this anymore or pay the bills. for it. “And this new agency has the power to raise its own fees and assess fees for those in Illinois and elsewhere to pay, either for the entire program or for additional parts within the state of Illinois.
“The danger of that is that there are public funds that are committed to racing and they no longer want to take these funds and the industry will lose the benefit of having those funds come in,” says Martin. to help the sports police.
“That’s going to play out very differently in every state, and it’s going to be largely influenced by the decisions that will be made at the levels above the Illinois Racing Board, I’ll assume.”
Martin said neither the HISA board nor its staff had the necessary knowledge of the state government’s nefarious schemes to properly appreciate the difficulties facing regulators.
“For example, and don’t do this wrong,” he said after pausing and referring to IRB chief executive Domenic Dicera, “Domenic has a lot of operational headaches that he might not be able to. share with all the trustees, and try to work through them and try to resolve the issues before the policy issues are presented to the committee.
“But there’s a lot of interaction with state budget departments and state agencies to approve positions or get enough funding for a particular line. I know. I ran the Race Council. car and New York Payroll in about nine years. We’ll get our budget from New York state and the Budget Department will call around the middle of the fiscal year and unilaterally cut the amount we’re allowed to pay. spending about 20% That’s just the reality of running a government agency.
“We’re trying to explain the headaches in this operation, which HISA needs to understand as they envision the partnership. They said they wanted to work with the states on these issues. And the states are certainly willing to do that but so far, they haven’t left states in the room.”
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Martin said his organization has been trying to work with HISA staff but concerns persist.
“In some cases, they listened to some input that ARCI or some of its members had provided,” he noted. “But this is their decision. And our concern is that if they choose not to maximize the existing public infrastructure, it will be an extremely costly imposition on an already established industry.” financial difficulties.”
