HORSE SENSE

 

               Two entities that rank at or near the bottom of their classes in just about every measure of public approval—the U.S. Congress (politics) and thoroughbred horse racing (sports)--  are getting together to do something that ought to improve the odors of both. Any day now Congress is expected to approve the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, aimed at curing many of the governing defects that have plagued the sport.

               The act would create national standards for such things as track safety and maintenance, injury-data collection and disciplinary processes and sanctions, and put them under the control of an authority overseen by the Federal Trade Commission. More importantly, it would place drug testing and administration in the hands of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), an independent body utilized by many sports.

               The action would replace in large part the hodgepodge of state agencies that govern (or misgovern) thoroughbred racing in the states that permit it. There are 38 of those bodies and they vary widely in competence and honesty. What is banned in one state might be permitted in another, making a shambles of rule enforcement. They’ve been sustained by raw politics—states have been loathe to give up any part of the patronage, perks and power the current system provides.

 The state boards and commissions won’t go away; they’ll still oversee many daily racetrack operations. And they’ll still run things for a while because for some reason the act won’t take effect until 2022. But after that issues that cut across state lines will be decided by a nine-member national authority, five of whose members must be free of ties to the sport.

In a show of nonpartisanship rare in Washington these days, the measure passed the U.S. House by voice vote in September and was sent along to the Senate. There it has quite a few named sponsors including the Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from the racing mecca of Kentucky, without whose support nothing moves in that body. Approval is expected to come before the January change of administrations. President Trump’s signature is said to be about as sure as anything is with him.

Behind the act are years of malfeasance that have made the sport a synonym for corruption just about everywhere it operates, sustained because of the jobs it provides (about one million nationally) and the state tax money it produces.  If anything, its stink has only increased in recent years, fueled by doping scandals that seem to grow ever larger and more complex.

Last March 27 horse trainers, veterinarians, pharmacists and other track employees were indicted after a wide-ranging FBI investigation into performance-enhancing drug use-allegedly affecting dozens of horses that ran on the New Jersey race tracks. Among the group was the well-known trainer Jason Servis, whose colt Maximum Security won the 2019 Kentucky Derby before being disqualified for cutting off other horses in the race’s homestretch run. He and the other defendants have pleaded not guilty. No trial date has been set.

Doping suspicions have trailed other leading trainers, including Bob Baffert, long the sport’s shining star. He has saddled six Kentucky Derby winners and two winners of the elusive Triple Crown for three-year-olds, American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018.  Twenty nine of his horses have failed drug tests over the past 40 years including four in the last six months. One of those animals was Gamine, the winner of a million-dollar Breeders Cup race three weeks ago.

Reporting by the excellent Joe Drape of the New York Times, one of the few newspapers that cover the sport beyond small-print lists of entries and results, revealed that Justify failed a drugs test after winning the 2018 Santa Anita Derby. This might have made the colt ineligible for the later Triple Crown races, but the California Racing Board, whose chairman had ties to Baffert, stretched its inquiry into the matter over four months, long enough to allow the animal to compete in the series and win. In a closed-door ruling the board eventually attributed the test failure to “environmental contamination,” letting Baffert off the hook. The trainer’s previous infractions have been dealt with similarly, with fines or brief suspensions being the harshest penalties. Most other trainers so apprehended also have received such treatment. 

Really¸ though, the hay bale that broke the holdouts’ backs was the death of 30 horses from training or racing mishaps during the Santa Anita winter meeting of 2018-19. That roused not only the sport’s usual animal-rights critics but also the public at large.  Along with its bureaucratic name, the act now pending in Washington ought to include an “in memoriam” reference to the Santa Anita fallen.

Congress’s willingness to protect equine lives stands in contrast to its unwillingness to do the same for some human athletes, namely boxers. It did pass the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act of 2000, which set national guidelines for medical matters in the sport, fighter-manager contracts and divisional ratings systems, but left enforcement in the hands of the state commissions, some of  whose bumbling helped create the need for such legislation. Boxing’s lack of proper governance mirrors that of horse racing and calls for the same remedy.

 Sen. John McCain led the push for the Ali Act and his death in 2018 left a boxing-advocacy void in Washington. Someone should step up to fill it, and the sooner the better.