Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority officials are “very confident” that the authority will take over drug-testing and adjudications of drug positives in most U.S. racing states as of March 27, the officials said Monday during a conference call. Lisa Lazarus, chief executive of HISA, said on the call that she is “very confident” about the March 27 launch date, which is the deadline for the Federal Trade Commission to issue its approval of a large tranche of rules covering HISA’s anti-doping and medication control programs. HISA re-submitted the rules earlier this year, after the FTC declined late in 2022 to approve a similar tranche due to several conflicting court rulings regarding the constitutionality of HISA’s enabling legislation. “We are officially on the one-month countdown,” Lazarus said. If the launch goes ahead as planned, the implementation of the ADMC program will represent a sea change for racing regulation in the United States, where drug-testing and adjudication of drug violations have been handled on a state-by-state basis for all of racing’s modern history. HISA’s rules would require that the authority for sample collection, chain of custody, laboratory accreditation, laboratory testing, out-of-competition testing, and adjudication of violations be transferred to the national organization. “That’s why we are beating the drum as loud as we can right now, because the moment the FTC approves the regulations, they are effective,” Lazarus said. “Those states [where HISA will operate on March 27] lose jurisdiction to conduct drug testing. So we have to be 110 percent ready to go as of March 27.” :: Bet the races on DRF Bets! Sign up with code WINNING to get a $250 Deposit Match, $10 Free Bet, and FREE DRF Formulator.  The ADMC program will be administered and overseen by a company called the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit, which is a subsidiary of Drug Free Sport International, a private company. HISA hired Drug Free Sport to administer the programs in mid-2022, and HIWU was created shortly thereafter to handle the company’s horse racing responsibilities. Drug Free Sport already has contracts with Major League Baseball, the NFL, and the NBA. Ben Mosier, executive director of the unit, said that HIWU personnel have been training racetrack and racing commission personnel to handle sample-collection duties at test barns around the country, using a new electronic paperwork system, in anticipation of the March 27 launch. HIWU also has been preparing materials designed to educate racing licensees about the changes that will occur once HIWU is up and running. “We’re trying to ensure industry understanding of the new rules as much as possible,” Mosier said. HISA has faced resistance from many racing commissions and horsemen’s groups, some of which have filed lawsuits seeking to block the authority’s programs from going into effect. One of those suits has resulted in a ruling that has enjoined HISA from enforcing its rules in both Louisiana and West Virginia. Lazarus acknowledged on the call that HISA has no plans to enforce its jurisdiction over those states until the legal matter has been resolved. Several other suits remain before courts of appeal, and it is possible, according to legal experts, that the FTC once again takes the position that it should not act to approve the rules while those suits are still pending. Last year, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that HISA is “facially unconstitutional,” and, this year, the court declined to re-hear the case after Congress added language to HISA’s enabling legislation designed to address the court’s decision. If the FTC does approve the rules, Lazarus noted that “not all states are conducting racing” on March 27, streamlining the number of jurisdictions where HISA and HIWU will need to be up and running on that date. The states where major tracks are running live in late March include California and Kentucky, where the state’s respective racing commissions have been extremely cooperative with HISA’s mandate; New York, where the racing commission has taken a hands-off approach to HISA due to state regulations that seem to limit the ability of its personnel to work with HISA; and Florida, where HISA is excepted to seek agreements with racetracks for its programs, rather than the racing commission. That also is the strategy in New York, Mosier said, where the New York Racing Association has been a significant supporter of HISA. Both Lazarus and Mosier said that HISA and HIWU continue to seek “voluntary agreements” with state racing commissions that would ease the transition and expense of the takeover of sampling and testing, but they acknowledged that no state racing commission has completed “the really formal process” of signing an agreement, according to Lazarus. “Having said that, we either have an [informal] agreement or a way forward in every state that we regulate,” Lazarus said. “So we’re not worried that we can go forward.” “The process will be smooth, efficient, and fast,” Mosier said. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.