Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Authority

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) has partnered with Palantir Technologies, a leading provider of artificial intelligence systems, to create a data-enabled tool to assist industry stakeholders in identifying horses at risk for injury before they race, according to a press release Tuesday morning from HISA. The tool will generate a daily report for each racetrack, flagging any horses entered in that day's races who may present potential risk factors for injury. This enables identification of at-risk horses with increased efficiency and accuracy and will inform the hands-on pre-race...

Jockey Antonio Fresu, currently second in the jockey's standings at Del Mar with 31 wins, has been suspended a total of 32 days by the California stewards for overuse of the whip. Fresu's suspension runs from Sept. 8 through Oct. 9. He was also fined $1,242. The suspensions came in the form of six separate rulings from the California Horse Racing Board, including two issued Sept. 4. According to CHRB spokesman Mike Marten, while the CHRB issued the rulings, it was only enforcing rules set forth by the Horse Racing...

Beth Bungert has been named by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission to the new position of safety steward. The position was created in June to ensure compliance of both Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) and KHRC standards and rules at the state's licensed Thoroughbred racetracks and training centers. As safety steward, Bungert will monitor regulatory and safety compliance and ensure that information is being shared with all parties. In her 20-year career in racing, Bungert has worked as a groom, exercise rider, veterinary assistant, assistant trainer, racing official and...

There would be no fairytale ending Thursday at Aqueduct for trainer Rick Schosberg. Silken Dollar (Central Banker), the last horse he will start before retiring from training, finished eighth in Thursday's fourth race at Aqueduct. That's OK. Schosberg, 61, learned a long time ago that the life of a horse trainer is never that easy. "Obviously the game has changed with the emergence of unlimited stall allocations," Schosberg said. "It's really affected the competitiveness of it. It used to be that every barn had a different outfit. Now there are...

A $1.7-trillion omnibus spending bill that includes language that would give the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) more authority over the Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) passed in the House of Representatives Friday. Friday's development came one day after the bill passed in the Senate. The bill will next go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law. The language in the bill relating to HISA is meant to address issues raised by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in November. That court ruled that HISA was unconstitutional...

In less than 12 weeks the Horse Racing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU), a branch of the Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA), will get to work, handling all drug testing and enforcement across the country. With that in mind, the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland called on HISA Chief Executive Officer Lisa Lazarus to bring us up to speed on the latest developments regarding her organization. Lazarus was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week. Lazarus said that seven of the racing commissions in the 14...