Round Table addresses crises

The keynote address of this year’s Jockey Club Round Table Conference on Matters Pertaining to Racing will be delivered by John Messara, owner and chairman of Arrowfield Stud in Australia, under a questionand-answer format conducted by The Jockey Club’s chief operating officer, according to an announcement by the organization issued Thursday.

Messara, who also has served as the chairman of two racing-related organizations in Australia, will be interviewed “about his achievements in the Thoroughbred industry and his opinions on the industry’s greatest challenges in Australia and globally,” The Jockey Club said in a press release. James Gagliano, president and chief operating officer of The Jockey Club, will conduct the interview.

This year’s Round Table is scheduled for Aug. 11 at the Gideon Putnam Resort in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The annual conclave is generally considered a bellwether event for the issues confronting the racing industry, and this year’s conference will be held in the midst of a public-relations crisis brought on by criticism of the industry’s record on the safety of horses due to a spate of equine fatalities at Santa Anita earlier this year.

Although this year’s agenda does not include presentations addressing that specific topic, David Fuscus, chief executive officer of the public-relations company Xenophon Strategies, will speak on “strategies for how the Thoroughbred industry should react under times of crisis,” according to The Jockey Club release.

For the past several years, The Jockey Club has been spearheading an effort to lobby for a federal bill that would place the regulation of racing’s medication policies and drugtesting efforts in the hands of a board controlled by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, a private, non-profit company. The organization said in its release that Bill Lear, vice chairman of The Jockey Club, will provide an update on those efforts.

The bill, which includes a controversial ban on the raceday use of furosemide, a diuretic that is used to mitigate bleeding in the lungs, is not unanimously supported by racing’s constituencies. Versions of the bill introduced over the last five years have not advanced to a vote at any stage of the legislative process, but supporters remain hopeful that the recent criticism of the racing industry will lead to progress on the legislation.

Other speakers on the Round Table agenda include Mike Mulvihill, a top executive at FOX Sports, about the network’s coverage of horse racing and its strategies “for addressing the recent legalization of sports betting.” Last year, FOX Sports reached an agreement with the New York Racing Association to provide nearly daily coverage of the racetrack operator’s meets at Belmont and Saratoga. Some funding for the production of the broadcasts is being provided by The Jockey Club’s marketing arm, America’s Best Racing.

Kim Kelly, the chief stipendiary steward of the Hong Kong Jockey Club, the government agency that controls all aspects of racing in the province, will give a presentation on Category 1 interference policies and the organization’s stewarding practices, according to The Jockey Club. Category 1 interference rules have been adopted in most major racing jurisdictions worldwide, but U.S. racing jurisdictions currently use Category 2 rules, which differ in the criteria used by stewards to issue disqualifications.

In addition to the those presentations, Valerie Pringle, the campaign manager for equine protection for the Humane Society of the United States, will speak about her organization’s policies on equine welfare and its support of the federal bill backed by The Jockey Club. Nancy Cox, the dean of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, will provide an overview of the college’s research into “safe and consistent racing surfaces.”