Durenberger Embraces Vital Role With HISA

Over the course of more than 30 years in the Thoroughbred racing industry, Dr. Jennifer Durenberger has worked in what she calls the "four corners" of the sport.

Specifically, that's New York, Minnesota, Louisiana, and California.

After starting as a sample collector at Canterbury Park as a teenager, her career took off and she has worked as a regulatory veterinarian in New York and California, and as a steward at New York Racing Association tracks, Delta Downs, and Canterbury.

And, like anyone else in the industry who has worked in several parts of the country, she was forced to learn a new set of rules and standards each time she picked up her roots and moved to a different state.

"I've seen first-hand the spectrum of rules that are enforced in different jurisdictions," she said.

All of which explains why Durenberger jumped late last year as if she was on a trampoline at the opportunity to become the director of equine safety and welfare for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority. After so many years of frustration generated by dealing with a variety of diverse rules in different jurisdictions, she is now playing a lead role in HISA's mandate to create standards that cross state lines and are honored from one coast to the other.

"To be a part of a group that sets national standards was something I was very enthusiastic about," the 51-year-old Minnesota native said. 

Durenberger is just one of the numerous individuals who left prominent industry jobs to join HISA, which was empowered by the United States Congress in 2020 to implement national integrity and safety standards. Launched July 1, 2022, HISA has already brought safety and welfare regulations under a single umbrella and on March 27, HISA's Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program will place medication rules and testing under the same type of national standards.

"I see my role as helping to support HISA's mission which is to make racing safer for our equine athletes and the folks that work with them, including the jockeys," said Durenberger, who left her job as a steward at NYRA tracks to join HISA Nov. 28. "What I do is provide advice on policy matters and assist our safety committee with rule revisions and considerations. I'm a liaison with the regulatory and attending veterinarians that provide health care all across the country."

Faced with the gargantuan task of working with industry stakeholders to understand and embrace new sets of regulations, Dr. Durenberger's schedule has been filled with a non-stop array of meetings and discussions with participants at all levels of the industry to elicit feedback on HISA's initial steps during its first nine months.

"We're never bored," said the Saratoga Springs, N.Y., resident, who received a veterinary degree from Cornell University and a law degree from Western State University. "HISA is still building out a lot of its processes and technology to make things more efficient and accurate on the veterinarian reporting side. So, it's been a lot of liaising with attending and regulatory vets and making sure we are building systems that make their jobs more efficient. We have some economies of scales right now since we are not working in a single state but across the country. We're taking feedback from people and bringing it back to HISA and the various committees and leadership."

For Lisa Lazarus, HISA's CEO, Durenberger was the right person to handle the important job of working with a multitude of industry figures during a vital transitional period that has also served as a learning curve.

"As director of equine safety and welfare, Dr. Durenberger has been instrumental to the implementation of HISA's Racetrack Safety Program, guiding our horse-centric approach to equine safety and ensuring ongoing collaboration with veterinarians across the country," Lazarus said. "Dr. Durenberger has been hard at work since joining us last November to ensure that veterinarians understand HISA's rules and are well-equipped to comply with the Racetrack Safety Program to help protect the health and safety of equine athletes. I'm confident that Dr. Durenberger is the right veterinarian to lead this massive undertaking."

Though HISA has faced some resistance and legal challenges, Durenberger says she has already seen some meaningful change in a short period of time as some jurisdictions come to grips with new rules in areas such as racetrack accreditation; safety requirements; racehorse inspections; monitoring and maintaining racing surfaces; claiming rules; veterinary records and vet's lists; crop usage; and safety and health requirements for jockeys.

"I have already seen some appreciable change and more protections for the equine athletes wherever they are. The HISA rules now follow the horse wherever it goes, so it is a set of horse-centric rules that our industry has never seen before," Durenberger said. "Since July 1 we brought some states with different rules in line with items such as uniform stand down times for horses that are put on the vet's list, procedures for getting off the vet's list, and the void claim rule, which in my mind is one of the biggest game changes in recent years."

Of course, with HISA less than a year old, the work load for Durenberger and everyone else involved in safety and welfare will not ease anytime soon as they strive to bring a fragmented industry together for a common goal.

"Where we would like to be a few months from now is that we have an industry that is really proud of the direction that it is collectively taking. This isn't just HISA doing something. It's all of the stakeholders coming together and really taking a step forward to try and make this industry sustainable," she said. "We want to be able to say that people are starting to see and feel and appreciate the changes and are very, very happy that they made the decision to support HISA. My hope is that we can work together as one to make the industry better for all of us."