LEXINGTON, Ky. – For the past decade, the most prominent and most controversial intramural debate within the North American racing community has involved the raceday use of the diuretic furosemide to mitigate bleeding in the lungs. Prior to 2019, nearly every major racing organization had weighed in on the topic in some way, shape, or form, but that list had a notable, powerful exception – Churchill Downs Inc. In the weeks prior to this year’s Kentucky Derby, that abruptly changed. Two weeks ago, Churchill Downs, host of the Derby, announced that it would join with a substantial roster of racetracks and racing organizations to push for regulatory changes that would ban the raceday use of furosemide, better known as Lasix, for 2-year-olds beginning in 2020 and for all stakes races, including the Derby, in 2021. That was immediately followed by an announcement that the company was implementing a handful of initiatives at its tracks designed to tackle the industry’s most pressing problem, catastrophic breakdowns, as well as spearheading the formation of a new organization to coordinate efforts among racetracks and racing commissions to support new regulations and “best practices.” Although Churchill has participated in industry initiatives like the Equine Injury Database and the Safety and Integrity Alliance, Churchill’s sudden emergence as an industry leader on medication and regulatory topics underlines the existential threat confronting racing in an era in which the general public, and racing itself, has become far more sensitive to issues of animal welfare. This winter, 23 horses broke down at another racing mecca, Santa Anita Park in Southern California, and the outcry that accompanied the deaths has put the entire industry on notice. Santa Anita’s crisis has become racing’s crisis. For Churchill, the deaths in California and the accompanying scrutiny promised to eventually swing the spotlight to the Derby, potentially threatening the race’s enormous popularity and profitability. But it’s not just about the Derby. Churchill also owns and operates the industry’s leading account-wagering company, twinspires.com, and any threat to the continued existence of tracks outside its own stable would jeopardize that business, too. Bill Carstanjen, the company’s chief executive officer, said in an interview last week that the announcements made by Churchill in mid-April were not a reaction to the Santa Anita events. Instead, he said, the initiatives that Churchill announced had, for the most part, been in the works for “some time,” as part of the company’s long-term analysis of racing trends. “Some of this ended up dovetailing with what was going on out there at Santa Anita,” he said. “It became a catalyst for some of us to make progress on these issues.” But according to officials involved in the effort, Churchill Downs did not actively begin recruiting partners to its Lasix announcement until March, when the gravity of the Santa Anita outcry began to sink in. Weeks later, aided by officials at another racing powerhouse, the New York Racing Association, Churchill had corralled a wide swath of tracks and other racing organizations to announce that they would push for the raceday restrictions on the use of furosemide, despite widespread opposition from horsemen in the state and the track’s long-running policy to stay out of the fray. While the roster of tracks and racing organizations that joined with Churchill include some of the most prominent names in the industry, including the Breeders’ Cup, one organization’s name is conspicuously absent – The Jockey Club. For the past five years, The Jockey Club has been leading an effort to gain support for a federal bill that would create a new organization responsible for devising and enforcing the industry’s medication and drug-testing policies, led by the United States Anti-Doping Association, a private non-profit group. The bill has been introduced to the House of Representatives three times, most recently earlier this year, in the midst of the Santa Anita outcry, but it has never advanced to a vote. Notably, the bill also has never been accompanied by a companion bill in the Senate, where the Majority Leader is Mitch McConnell, a Republican senator from Kentucky who lives in Louisville. Churchill has been mum about the bill in the past, but last week Carstanjen went on the record about the legislation. He said that the company’s officials had raised objections about provisions within the bill, that those objections had not been addressed, and that the company remains opposed to it. “We don’t believe a federal bill is practical, reasonable, or imminent,” Carstanjen said. As a result, Churchill is now the leader of a parallel effort to bring about the types of changes in the racing industry also favored by The Jockey Club, but its approach – to work together with horsemen and racing commissions – is entirely different. What looks like a broad effort to restrict raceday Lasix use is actually a split among powerful constituencies about how to go about it, even as horsemen promise to push back against both plans. “This is the reality of our industry,” Carstanjen said. “As a racetrack organization you can’t just do what you want to do. We’re a regulated industry. You can’t just make the changes you want to by yourself. You don’t exist in a vacuum. . . . You need an organization of like-minded folks who want to see change.” The organization that will seek that change is called the Office of Racing Integrity, and it will advance a concept that had been bandied about by other organizations over the past several years, including a group representing horsemen in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. It wasn’t long after Churchill’s announcement that supporters of the federal bill pushed back against Churchill and the new coalition. Jim Gagliano, chief operating officer of The Jockey Club, wrote an editorial in the Lexington Herald-Leader maintaining that federal legislation was the only route to meaningful change in the industry. An organization called WHOA (Water Hay Oats Alliance) went further, saying that the strategy sought by Churchill and its allies was “like putting a Band-Aid on a shotgun wound.” “Where is the national uniformity our sport so desperately needs?” the organization said. Most immediately, though, it remains to be seen whether Churchill’s announcements will impact the coverage of the sport during Derby week, when national media outlets that rarely cover racing descend on the track, usually with assignments germane not only to the race, but the atmosphere surrounding racing. Churchill certainly gave news outlets plenty of reasons to point out the company’s efforts, but it remains to be seen whether they will ultimately be effective. Along with the furosemide push, the company said that it planned to build an equine medical center on the grounds of Churchill and install surveillance cameras in every barn on the backstretch within the next three years. It also said that the Office of Racing Integrity would lobby racing commissions for stricter withdrawal times on anti-inflammatory medications and painkillers, with an executive director to be announced soon. The company later announced a $100,000 contribution toward research seeking ways to identify horses that are at-risk for injuries. “The most important goal is to improve the game, to improve safety for horses and for jockeys,” Carstanjen said, “to shape and change the dialogue so that other jurisdictions can be ready and willing for that change.”