NHBPA

The National HBPA has sent correspondence to Florida horsemen and racing fans urging them to send a letter to Florida senators to vote no on decoupling. In it, the organization urges readers to flood the Senate, and the Florida State Senator representing their address' district, with a prepared letter explaining the grave danger HB 105--and its virtual twin Senate Bill 408--poses to a key state industry. While the Senate measure has a separate number bill from the House, the objective is reportedly the same--allow racetracks to keep their gaming licenses...

Spikezone (Speightster), whose 11 victories in 2024 trailed only the 13 recorded by Tennessee Moon (Ransom the Moon), has been named National Claiming Horse of the Year for 2024 by the National HBPA. "We're thrilled for him," said Mid-Atlantic-based trainer Jamie Ness, whose Jagger Inc. stable owns Spikezone with Troy Johnson and Charles Lo. "He deserves it." Said Lo: "I am so shocked. It just doesn't happen the way it has--maybe one time out of 100. It's crazy. I never had a horse that good." Johnson: "It's a dream, unreal."...

The National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (NHBPA) on Monday urged the United States Supreme Court not to grant the stay of an unconstitutionality mandate that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is waiting to issue regarding the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA). That mandate, stemming from a July 5 unconstitutionality opinion on HISA by the Fifth Circuit, was administratively stayed by the Supreme Court on Sept. 23. The HISA Authority had requested a stay on Sept. 19 pending the filing and disposition of its broader...

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit required fewer than 24 hours to shoot down a request made Monday by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) to delay the issuance of that court's mandate that the Horseracing and Safety Integrity Act is unconstitutional. The Authority had asked the appeals court to hold off on making the mandate official while the Authority petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and decide the current HISA constitutionality conflict that exists because of clashing opinions out of two separate...

A Monday order out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit shot down a request for a rarely granted "en banc" procedure that the Horseracing and Safety Integrity Act (HISA) Authority and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had asked for last month. Had the long-shot legal maneuver been successful, it would have granted a rehearing before all of that court's judges to review a July 5, 2024, opinion issued by a panel of three that had declared HISA is unconstitutional because its enforcement provisions violate the...

On Friday--the final day of the National HBPA Conference at Prairie Meadows--a panel entitled "Establishing No-Effect Thresholds and the Importance for the Industry" was led by practicing equine veterinarian and researcher Dr. Clara Fenger. She cited the Horseracing Integrity & Safety Authority's enabling legislation that HISA-covered horses "should compete only when they are free from the influence of medications ..." (her emphasis added). Fenger's point: Testing many substances to limit of detection--if the lab can find it, it's a violation, no matter how tiny the amount and whether it impacts...

The July 5 opinion out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that declared that part of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) is unconstitutional is generating legal filings from both sides in a related case awaiting a decision in the Eighth Circuit. Both the plaintiffs/appellants in the Eighth Circuit case (led by Bill Walmsley, the president of the Arkansas HBPA, and Jon Moss, the executive director of the Iowa HBPA) and the defendants/appellees (executives with the HISA Authority and the Federal Trade Commission [FTC]),...

A judgment Friday by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit declared that part of the Horseracing and Safety Integrity Act (HISA) is unconstitutional. Even though the three-judge panel agreed with "nearly all" of a lower court's ruling that other contested aspects of HISA's constitutionality were fixed by a Congressional amendment to the law in 2022, the panel's one unconstitutional finding has to do with the HISA Authority's broad powers to investigate and operate. The gravity of that unconstitutionality opinion could be enough to send the case...

The United States Supreme Court will not hear a challenge to the Horse Racing Safety and Integrity Act (HISA) filed by Oklahoma, Louisiana and West Virginia after the Sixth Court Circuit's Court of Appeals found that HISA is constitutional, according to an announcement from the Supreme Court Monday. "Certiorari denied," was the only statement coming from the court regarding the ruling, which was included among a monthly list of numerous other writ approvals and denials that the Supreme Court made public in batch format June 24. A writ of certiorari...

Owner Jordan Wycoff was victorious with his only two entrants on Saturday's Claiming Crown card, executing a similar strategy with both favored winners. Each had met their respective starter-allowance eligibility conditions by only once having raced at or below the required minimum claiming price. And both recently had been running against tough competition on the New York and Kentucky circuits before overpowering their fields at Fair Grounds in a rain-soaked renewal of the annual event nicknamed "the blue-collar Breeders' Cup." One of Wycoff's wins Dec. 2 was delivered by Money...

Edited Press Release Ken Ramsey is back at the Claiming Crown. If he has only three horses (in two races) running in the program designed to showcase American horse racing's blue-collar horses, it's not for a lack of effort. The 88-year-old Ramsey is the winningest owner in the history of the Claiming Crown, which will be staged for the 25th time this Saturday at the historic Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots. But his last starter came with Peru (GB) (Motivator {GB}), whose victory in the 2018 Claiming Crown Tiara...

A 2 1/2-year-old legal fight led by the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (NHBPA) to try and overturn the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) based on alleged constitutional flaws got distilled into one hour of oral arguments on Wednesday in the case's second go-round before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. As expected, lawyers for the two sides stuck to the finer points of constitutionality law, and there were only several passing references related to horse racing. The arguments centered on...