TUCSON, Ariz. – The two opening speakers at the Global Symposium on Racing used their 30 minutes at the microphone to urge racing to unite behind both the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority and the idea that racing should begin to publicly stress its merits, rather than focusing on its shortcomings. Mike Mulvihill, an executive vice president at the Fox broadcasting company who is its head of strategy and analytics, said in his keynote address to open the symposium that racing is, ideally, a “poem, a puzzle, and a party,” and he called for racing participants to “be proud of racing.” “Don’t ignore its flaws and challenges, but start with the recognition of what made you love it in the first place,” Mulvihill said. “Tell people what makes it great and never stop telling them, and you will grow this game.” Moments later, Lisa Lazarus, the chief executive of HISA, adopted Mulvihill’s phrasing while stressing that racing is in urgent need of uniting in support of HISA at a time when the authority’s constitutionality hangs in limbo due to a recent ruling of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, a decision that arose out of a challenge brought by a major horsemen’s group and several state racing commissions. :: DRF Bets members get FREE DRF Past Performances - Formulator or Classic. Join now! “We need to be united as an industry,” Lazarus said. “We need to speak with one voice. That’s when the poem, the puzzle, and the party can light up, take stock, and soar.” The dovetailing messages, which received generous ovations, provided a rare moment of public solidarity for an industry that is currently riven over HISA, which was created by federal legislation passed late in 2020. HISA is set to implement its anti-doping and medication control program as of Jan. 1, and it is using the symposium as a platform to attempt to unify the industry and build the support it will need to obtain adequate funding and fully roll out its myriad programs. For Fox Sports, Thoroughbred racing has become a two-headed beast for the company’s dual ambitions to drive viewers to its programs and move bettors to its gambling operations. Last year, when Fox’s networks broadcast 800 hours of live racing, the company bought into the account-wagering operation of the New York Racing Association, its broadcast partner. Mulvihill, who is a lifelong racing fan, said that the partnership is reaping rewards. Expanding on his “poem, puzzle, party,” phrase, Mulvihill said that racing stands out in a sporting environment in which live sports have “in many cases become overpriced, overproduced, and over-manicured.” “Accessibility and spontaneity have been sacrificed, creating an opportunity for horse racing to stand out as a rollicking event where anyone can pay a reasonable admission, wear an unreasonable hat, smoke a cigar, yell at the top of their lungs, and just maybe leave with a little more money than they came with, although that never happens to me,” said Mulvihill. Mulvihill also said that Fox has deliberately changed the tone of its racing broadcasts by employing hard-core handicappers as its analysts, and he said that the strategy of focusing on detailed gambling opinions and strategies will carry forward through its initial broadcast of the Belmont Stakes next year. In tandem with its coverage, Fox will create a show that “will dive deeper into the language of handicapping than any Triple Crown show has ever gone before.” “The puzzle is in the never-ending challenge of handicapping,” Mulvihill said. “It’s presenting it as a Rubik’s cube that smart, sophisticated people try to solve no differently than they try to solve the New York Times crossword puzzle. . . . When the puzzle, the party, and the poem are in balance, there’s just nothing like it in sports.” Lazarus spent most of her opening speech detailing the 10 things she has learned since taking the helm at HISA earlier this year. A former NFL executive who came to HISA from an international regulatory body for equestrian sports, Lazarus, an attorney, used the list to attempt to build a case to HISA’s opponents that the authority is acting solely in the best interests of the sport. At the outset of her speech, Lazarus acknowledged that she had initially planned to focus her speech on HISA’s plans for 2023, but that was prior to the Fifth Circuit ruling, which was released on Nov. 18. Instead, she said, she decided to pivot to the past. “I realized that my remarks needed to be a little more impactful, a little more existential,” she said. “We have an incredible product, an incredible industry, and if I have to say one thing that I really feel I have learned in this last 10 months is that I have fallen in love with this industry and the people who make it.” :: Get Daily Racing Form Past Performances – the exclusive home of Beyer Speed Figures HISA was structured in its legislation as independent regulatory body, a non-profit company that would be governed by a board of directors whose voting majority did not have connections to the racing industry. While regulators and supporters of HISA have praised that structure, the absence of industry knowledge on some of HISA’s committees has become a source of friction between HISA and many horsemen, who claim that some of HISA’s rules and protocols are in some cases naive and in other cases overbearing. HISA has responded to that criticism by forming a “horsemen’s advisory committee” this fall and by expanding the pool of applicants for its committees, in an attempt to find appointees that have had experience in racing or its associated businesses. In fact, on Monday, an “independent appointee” to its safety committee was a former practicing farrier who is currently the chief of farrier services at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center. Lazarus reached out to HISA’s critics in her speech. “I love our critics,” Lazarus said. “I really do. Because they’re talking to me, because they’re engaging, because they’re helping to make HISA and this industry better.” “We’re a colorful family,” Lazarus said, earlier in her speech. “So let’s act like real families. Let’s fight like hell behind closed doors, but let’s present a unified vision to the public.” Biometric data to prevent horse injuries In a morning panel following the keynote speakers, a number of racing officials discussed the seemingly promising results arising from several studies that are generating data on horse’s strides and biometrics through the use of inexpensive sensors attached to horse’s bodies. Most notably, Dr. David Lambert, the co-founder of a company, StrideSafe, that is using the sensors to gather anonymized data on horses in New York and Kentucky, said that his studies are providing critical data to identify horses that are potentially at much higher risk for catastrophic injury. With the zeal of any inventor for their product, Lambert talked in nearly revolutionary terms about the new technology and its results, which he said could make catastrophic injuries “a thing of the past.” “This problem that we are all facing, this thing that we think is so astronomical and so difficult to crack, I think you can see it, it isn’t,” said Lambert, after showing a slide of sensor data depicting the stride changes in several horses who eventually broke down after workouts produced outlying data. Due to the results from his studies, horsemen and regulatory veterinarians in New York are already receiving post-race and post-workout results qualifying the sensors’ data in three colors: green for safe, yellow for caution, and, finally, red, to alert a horseman or regulatory veterinarian that the horse’s performance generated data well outside the parameters of a normal work or race. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match and FREE Formulator PPs! Join DRF Bets. Dr. Will Farmer, a former regulatory veterinarian in Kentucky and California who is now the equine medical officer for Churchill Downs Inc., said that wearable technologies and the data they produce are “groundbreaking,” but he cautioned that some of the reports from the sensors can produce “false flags.” The purpose of a study funded this year by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission to refine the StrideSafe data reports is underway, and Farmer said that it’s proceeding well. Ideally, the study will produce results that regulatory veterinarians can present as “objective data” for trainers when they urge the trainers to back off a horse, which can be a “contentious” encounter, Farmer said. “What we want to be able to find is these true flags vs. false flags,” he said. “And then when we identify true red flags, what should out protocol be?” International simulcasting Another morning panel analyzed the growth in international simulcasting over the past decade, particularly the results of the World Pool, a collection of high-profile races, usually held on the weekend, that are marketed to simulcasting outlets around the world, with all bets commingled in common pools. The pools are administered by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which has lofty ambitions for the project, both to increase handle on high-profile races but also to generate more international competition among countries. On a more mundane note on the panel, Simon Fraser, who sells the racing signals controlled by 1/ST Racing to international simulcast customers – mostly “bookmakers,” he said, who “want content 24 hours a day” – was asked what mid-level tracks in the U.S. can do to make their product more attractive overseas. “Go off on time and run when there isn’t any competition,” Fraser said. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.