Message from National HBPA CEO Eric Hamelback

(from the Summer 2024 issue of The Horsemen’s Journal)
The Time to Stand Together is Now — Before It’s Too Late

The last few months in horse racing have been trying, to say the least. While many in the industry seem to misinterpret what the role of the National HBPA actually is, I would hope the vast majority do not. With personal criticisms and attacks regularly hurled my way (mainly through social media), I do the best I can to keep my head down and offer help and assistance to horsemen. It is not the role of the National HBPA to guide and direct the policies of our affiliates, but we do offer assistance when needed and serve as the voice of our affiliates when directed to do so.

The National HBPA has long been committed to establishing uniformity in medication rules affecting our equine athletes using veterinary science and peer-reviewed research to formulate policy. However, horsemen and horsewomen do not make the rules; we only abide by medication rules set by a regulatory authority.

This is one reason the National HBPA continues to demand racehorse testing policies that incorporate common sense and science. We are urging the regulatory powers that be to insist that the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA)/Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) utilize established research and qualified veterinary scientists to set allowable thresholds below which substances have no pharmacological effect on racehorses.

The National HBPA has been working on behalf of the owners and trainers we represent and believes that representation has led to advisory groups of active racing participants being a part of the HISA construct. We called for that early on, and it should have been instituted on Day 1 but unfortunately was not.

We need more than seats on a glorified advisory committee. We need a new advisory group—not one created by HISA—that helps our horsemen and horsewomen navigate the difficult situation into which some have been thrust. We’re dealing with livelihoods, and they are being controlled by people with no idea of what we face on a daily basis. Horsemen want clean racing, but that’s not aided by the current “gotcha” chemistry that unfairly devastates horsemen’s reputations and finances for something beyond their control.

The National HBPA and its affiliates have been pushing for years on the issues presented in the recent HIWU findings that include methamphetamine, metformin, tramadol and even ethyl glucuronide. Long before HISA and HIWU, we were advocating that common sense and science must be used in recognizing no-effect levels of environmental transfer of banned substances, for which methamphetamine is now the poster child.

As the National HBPA has insisted all along, the levels that trigger an adverse analytical finding need to ensure that innocent horsemen are not trapped in a web of overzealous testing that goes far below any possible pharmacological impact. We are not aware of all the testing levels that recently led to HIWU violations, but we do know the levels initially found in Iowa horseman Dick Clark’s horse were less than 400 picograms per milliliter of plasma. (Again, for clarity, a picogram is one trillionth of a gram, or the equivalent of one second in the life of a person who is 32,000 years old.)

Should the positive even have been called if the amount could not have had any impact on the horse? What about when subsequent human testing suggests humans were the likely source of contamination? What happens when the person exposing the horse to a substance is not someone employed or contracted by a trainer? Often the source remains unidentified, because it could have been a gate hand, valet, jockey, pony person, test-barn employee or anyone who interacted with and contaminated the horse. Would the comparable level be called in human testing?

Horsemen continue to face fines and suspensions for what most see as an unavoidable exposure. Now is the time for us to come together with our collective numbers and demand our rights and representation on HISA policymaking. We know HISA is the law of the land, but don’t forget how it became law of the land. It was not through a majority vote or via normal legislative procedure. It was snuck in at the proverbial midnight deadline, and we believe the time is now for HISA’s policymakers to work in good faith with the majority.

Transparency equals consistency, and the National HBPA will continue to apply pressure to get the best results we can for our horsemen nationwide, through all means possible, including legislatively, requests for rule changes, direct interaction with HISA and, yes, legal action if that’s required to prevent a private corporation with unfettered taxation capability and little transparency from trampling on horsemen’s rights. We will continue to make this industry better for horsemen and horsewomen as well as our cherished racehorses.

Sincerely,
Eric J. Hamelback