The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to the recently implemented Horse Racing and Safety Act (HRSA). That means the federal law, which has led to national medication and anti-doping rules, still stands as it was enacted in 2020 and strengthened by Congress two years later.
A 6-year-old Thoroughbred is euthanized on the track at New York’s Belmont Park in June 2023. (Image: PETA/YouTube)
The challenge — brought by Oklahoma, Louisiana, West Virginia, and individual racetracks in other states — sought to overturn an opinion, from the Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, upholding the federal law’s constitutionality. The challenge argued that Congress gave too much power to the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA), a private entity created by the HRSA to administer the rules.
The HISA is charged with centralizing and managing the results of racehorse drug testing, as well as the meting out of uniform penalties to violators — instead of the previous patchwork of rules that governed horse racing in the 38 states that allow it.
“HISA’s uniform standards are having a material, positive impact on the health and well-being of horses,” said Charles Scheeler, HISA’s board chair, in a statement following the ruling, citing a 38% decline in equine fatalities for the first three months of 2024.
After HISA began overseeing racetrack safety on July 1, 2022, the number of horse racing deaths at HISA-controlled tracks decreased slightly, from 1.25 per 1,000 starts in 2022 to 1.23 per 1,000 starts in 2023.
Not all Thoroughbred tracks operate under HISA, however, as racing commissions in several states refuse to comply. They include Texas, Louisiana, and West Virginia. In these and other places, horse racing deaths continue to occur with greater frequency (1.63 per 1,000 starts in 2023) compared to HISA tracks.
Two other cases are pending in federal court, one in the 5th Circuit and one in the 8th.
“We still could hear any day from the 5th Circuit on whether HISA remains unconstitutional after the congressional tweak, and the oral argument last October went well for us,” Eric Hamelback, CEO of the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, a Kentucky-based lobbying group representing the interests of Thoroughbred racehorse owners, told the Associated Press.
Legislation to dismantle the HISA was also introduced in September to the House of Representatives but has yet to go anywhere.
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