Udall bill would tighten law on horse doping
WASHINGTON — As horse racing enthusiasts prepare for the 139th running of the Kentucky Derby today, Sen. Tom Udall and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency are aiming to strengthen regulation of performance-enhancing drugs in the sport.
Udall, a New Mexico Democrat, next week will introduce a bill with two U.S. House colleagues that would put the USADA — the agency that doggedly pursued doping allegations against seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong — in charge of regulating drug use in horse racing.
“The chronic abuse of race horses with painkillers and other drugs is dangerous and just plain wrong,” Udall said. “Racing groups have promised drug reform for decades, but this bill would bring in real standards and enforcement from an organization with a proven record for cleaning up sports.”
Travis Tygart, the USADA’s president and one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential
people in the world for 2013, is widely credited with forcing Armstrong’s admission last year that he had routinely used performance enhancing drugs. Armstrong has since been stripped of his Tour de France titles and banned from professional cycling for life.
In a Journal interview, Tygart said the USADA is eager to help clean up the horse racing industry.
“The world now knows the only truly effective way to police a sport is through independent agencies,” Tygart said. “We’re willing to do whatever we can to help the industry and Congress solve the problem.”
A New York Times investigation published last year found that horse doping and its damaging consequences are particularly pervasive in New Mexico. The Times investigation revealed that New Mexico’s five racinos collectively had the worst safety record in the nation.
Lax rules allow trainers to inject horses with painkillers to mask injury and then race them, which can lead to fatal injuries for jockeys and horses.
Responding to scathing criticism that followed the New York Times investigation, the governor-appointed New Mexico Racing Commission rushed to adopt stricter state regulations and penalties for horse doping.
The New Mexico Legislature earlier this year approved creation of a fund to finance drug testing of racehorses at laboratories that meet national standards.
Udall’s bill — dubbed the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act — would provide USADA with authority to clean up the sport and enforce antidoping standards in races with simulcast wagering. USADA is a non-governmental organization that polices U.S. Olympic athletes and works to strengthen clean competition policies in sports.
Under Udall’s bill, the costs associated with policing the sport would be covered by tracks, horse breeders and others in the industry instead of taxpayers, his office said.
Tygart said the integrity of the horseracing industry is at stake.
“Races are essentially rigged and those that know about it have an advantage and they can go rob the bank unbe-knownst to someone else and come out looking like heroes in the public’s eye,” Tygart said. “The industry can’t afford that anymore. It has to clean itself up and give people confidence in what they are putting their hard-earned dollars on and that it has integrity.”
Tygart said the Udall legislation would help the horses themselves, some of which have been euthanized after races in which they suffered serious injury.
“These athletes (horses) don’t have a choice in this,” he said. “And the market value of their stud lines has decreased significantly on the world market because of performance enhancing drugs. The sport wants to recapture the beauty it once had.”
The legislation marks Udall’s second attempt to tackle the horse doping issue.
Last year, the New Mexico senator offered a bill that would have forced states to enact antidoping rules for horse racing and required the Federal Trade Commission to issue penalties if the rules were broken. But the legislation stalled without the support of Republicans opposed to federal government intervention.
The Association of Racing Commissioners International, an organization that regulates horse and greyhound racing in the U.S. and elsewhere, opposes Udall’s latest bill.
“While we have the utmost respect for what the U.S. AntiDoping Agency does in human sport, we are concerned that the program they deploy permits the use of prohibited substances in competition upon receipt of a therapeutic-use exemption, something we do not allow in horse racing,” Ed Martin, the organization’s president, said in a prepared statement.
“If those standards were applied to horse racing, they would considerably weaken the current program as well as undermine some of the reforms we are currently working to implement,” he said.
Vince Mares, director of the New Mexico Racing Commission, did not respond to requests for comment from the Journal on Friday.