Feds Approve $80 Million Budget for ‘Private’ Horse Racing Regulator
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority’s (HISA) $80 million budget last week. Created in 2020 to regulate safety in professional horse racing, HISA is a classic example of wasteful government spending and should be a prime target for the incoming Department of Government Efficiency.
The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act of 2020, which passed with bipartisan support, created and tasked HISA to develop and oversee anti-doping, medication control, and racetrack safety programs under the supervision of the FTC. While the FTC claims that HISA “serves the goals of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act in a prudent and cost-effective manner” the agency’s budget says otherwise.
The lion’s share of the authority’s approved 2025 budget is not allocated for ensuring racetrack safety ($3 million) or veterinary services for horses ($916,000)—both of which should be privately insured and provided, respectively—but for the $58.6 million anti-doping and medication control budget. The budget primarily covers the costs of sample collection and testing “for post-race, out-of-competition, and TCO2 [total carbon dioxide] testing,” which the authority outsources to the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU), a division of Drug Free Sport International, a full-service provider of anti-doping services.
In 2025, HISA will pay $6.7 million to cover the salaries of 36 full-time HIWU employees wh
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