The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission on Tuesday approved an agreement to cooperate with the regulatory plans of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, but the approval came with several caveats. With the unanimous approval, the KHRC joins the California Horse Racing Board in agreeing to perform various duties on behalf of HISA when the authority implements its Anti-Doping and Medication Control program, which could be launched as early as next week. The launch of the program is pending final approval from the Federal Trade Commission, which late last year declined to approve the program’s regulations due to ongoing legal challenges to HISA. Under the agreement, the KHRC will receive credits towards its HISA assessments based on its cooperation with the authority, including collecting samples in both post-race and out-of-competition settings and continuing to perform drug-testing services for samples pulled in the state. :: Bet the races on DRF Bets! Sign up with code WINNING to get a $250 Deposit Match, $10 Free Bet, and FREE DRF Formulator.  However, with its vote, the KHRC rejected an obligation to collect fees from the state’s racetracks to cover their HISA assessments. That will put HISA in the position of negotiating the assessments with the tracks, which currently disagree with HISA on how those fees should be calculated. In addition, the agreement was approved under a provision that gives the KHRC the option to nullify the deal “if all or a relevant portion of the Horseracing Integrity and [Safety] Act is found unconstitutional by a court of competent jurisdiction, with all appeals being exhausted,” according to the motion offered by the KHRC’s chair, Jonathan Rabinowitz. The constitutionality of HISA’s enabling legislation has been considered by two U.S. District Courts of Appeals in the past six months, with the two courts issuing contradictory options. While the Fifth Circuit ruled in November that the enabling legislation was “facially unconstitutional” due to violations of the Constitution’s non-delegation clause, the Sixth Circuit issued an opinion in early March upholding the constitutionality of the bill, citing, in part, a successful effort to amend the legislation at the end of last year, after the Fifth Circuit released its decision. The dueling opinions make it likely that the Supreme Court will consider petitions to hear the case, according to legal experts. The challenges to HISA have been filed by horsemen’s groups and a handful of racing commissions and state attorneys general that have expressed opposition to accepting the jurisdiction of a federally created authority with national regulatory power. The Kentucky racing commission supported the passage of HISA’s enabling legislation and has been one of the few racing commissions to publicly express enthusiasm for partnering with HISA on its regulatory plans. Jamie Eads, the executive director of the commission, made a point during consideration of the motion to say that the process to reach an agreement with HISA on shared resources and assessments “started last fall” while referencing “several starts and stops” related to the legal ramifications of the various lawsuits. “We feel good where we are right now,” Eads told the commissioners. On the issue of the racetrack assessments, the motion also contained a clause “expressing the KHRC’s position” that it agreed with state racetracks on an interpretation of HISA’s enabling legislation that contends that the authority cannot base racetrack assessments on any criteria other than total starts. That’s contrary to the current assessment formula used by HISA, which includes total starts as a component but is weighted according to the size of a track’s purses. Purses have skyrocketed in Kentucky due to subsidies from gambling machines owned and operated by the state’s racetracks, which has pushed up the size of the assessments owed by Kentucky tracks under the weighted formula. Mandy Minger, a spokesperson for HISA, said that the authority would not comment on the disagreement between HISA and the tracks on the assessment formula. The Sixth Circuit decision that declared HISA’s enabling legislation unconstitutional also took issue with the current formula being used to determine assessments, citing the language of the statute. The suit heard by the Sixth Circuit was brought by horsemen’s groups affiliated with the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.