WGOH: In Terms of Racing's Big Picture, HISA Delivers

When it comes to describing the positive change for racing brought by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, we'll step aside and go with what Jena Antonucci said.

On a panel discussing HISA at The Jockey Club Round Table on Matters Pertaining to Racing Aug. 3 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., the history-making trainer said she is seeing the big changes that supporters of HISA had envisioned when it began oversight of the sport's safety in 2022 and its anti-doping and medication control in May.

The panel touched on a few of the tweaks and changes that HISA has made since launch of its ADMC efforts May 22—changes that Ben Mosier, executive director of HISA's enforcement arm, the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit, said are typical in human sports as regulators and athletes work together to build fair sport.

In recent weeks the issues behind those changes, rightfully so, have made headlines as HISA finds the best and fairest path forward. But if there was any doubt about the big picture—an effort that finally can bring about a sport where all participants take pride in fair competition and cheaters are left behind—the first woman to saddle a horse to victory in a United States classic race provided that reminder Thursday.

"I may be a minority in this thought but I find (HISA) has been the great equalizer," Antonucci said. "It isn't a secret that there's different availability at different levels. Availability of different pharmaceuticals, different really smart chemists—people looking to gain an edge that (HISA and HISA supporters) have worked so hard to try and neutralize."

Antonucci went on to outline how difficult it is for a trainer who aims to follow the rules to compete with those willing to break them. In a sport where race conditions are written to make the fields as evenly matched as possible, small advantages are big advantages. In this racing world that existed under the former state-to-state oversight of ADMC, trainers such as Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro, both since convicted on federal charges, thrived. 

For instance, in 2019 at Monmouth Park Servis and Navarro finished first and second, respectively, at the meet by wins with a combined 108 victories and a 30% win rate. Their horses earned $4,359,488, which represented 16% of the purses awarded that year at Monmouth. That success came at the expense of honest trainers. It was a world where cheat trainers could win at the highest level or they could claim a horse and immediately move them up for a quick payday while state regulators didn't seem to notice the conditioners consistently improving horses five or 10 lengths. In this world, the honest trainer not only lost races, they lost horses to claims and potentially lost owners to these high-percentage conditioners.

It is this racing world that Antonucci sees HISA effectively bringing to an end. 

"I feel the biggest benefit has been to probably the hardest hit trainers of this industry, which is the middle and smaller-middle size (trainer). I think it has allowed a level playing field," Antonucci continued. "That guy or gal that busts their butt seven days a week—24/7—can walk into a race not feeling like they're going to watch another horse re-break at the head of the stretch. Their applied trade and their skillset will have an opportunity to shine; where that 8% trainer historically—where it looks like they can't train a racehorse—it's all of a sudden, 'Wow, she's winning more or he's winning more.' 

"And it's not because we've done anything different in our practice. It's just that we've been able to continue to come forward, whether it's an amazing opportunity in the grade 1 Belmont Stakes or a $12,500 claimer, it's knowing we have the opportunity to march down that stretch and compete eye-to-eye with the horse that's next to them, and there's not a pharmaceutical in our way."

In recent weeks we've heard fair criticism of aspects of HISA and we've heard noise aimed at exploiting those problems in an effort to go back to the old way (as if it were without problems). But only one of these systems can take racing to where it needs to go.

Details are important and HISA will need to work to continue to be fair to racing's participants—it already has made some tweaks—but the overall payoff of this new approach, as outlined above by Jena Antonucci, outlines why the vast majority of this industry believes HISA can bring a better racing environment where drug-free racing becomes a point of pride for participants.