HISA budget

Tuesday's Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) virtual town hall was a free-wheeling affair, with the bulk of the two-hour meeting spent on a discursive question-and-answer segment moderated by trainer Ron Moquett and bloodstock agent David Ingordo, two members of HISA's horsemen's advisory board. The initial focus of the town hall was HISA's 2026 budget. This year's gross budget, recently approved by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), comes to $77.2 million. If all the available credits are utilized by the industry, the net budget comes out to $60.6 million (though...

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act's proposed 2026 budget has been out for its mandatory public comment period and is now before the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The topline comes out to just over $78.4 million. If credits to the industry are fully applied, then the cost to the industry is around $60.4 million. HISA has already responded to nine public comments posted to the federal register. Its response, however, doesn't include those subsequently submitted by Churchill Downs Incorporated's (CDI) CEO, Bill Carstanjen. CDI is hardly an impartial voice in...

During a detail-crammed 90 minutes, representatives from the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) and Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) took to a virtual town hall Thursday to talk some of the what, how and whys of the federal program's budget processes since its inception in 2022 and on into next year's yet-to-be projected cost sheet. As HISA CEO Lisa Lazarus summed up the event, "HISA operates as a service to the industry. We owe a tremendous fiduciary obligation to our stakeholders, and we take that very seriously." The...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Nov. 6 issued an order approving the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority's $80-million budget for 2025. The Authority's proposed 2025 budget garnered only three public comments after it was first submitted to the FTC on July 31 and subsequently published in the Federal Register. The public commentary period closed Sept. 12. According to the FTC's order, "Two of the comments were brief and did not address the Decisional criteria that the Commission must apply in determining whether to approve a proposed budget. A third,...

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) has released its proposed budget for 2024, totaling $80.96 million, including $38.7 million earmarked for the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU), the drug testing arm of the federal program. The total fee assessments for the states and racetracks come out to $78.5 million, but available credits potentially bring that number down to $59.8 million. HISA's 2023 total budget was initially set at $72.5 million. That number was subsequently revised down to $66.4 million earlier this year. The proposed 2024 budget was issued...