Sponsors (5)
Official title: To protect the health and welfare of covered horses and improve the integrity and safety of horseracing by authorizing States to enter into an interstate compact to develop and enforce scientific medication control rules and racetrack safety rules that are uniform for each equine breed, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 14, 2025 by Clay Higgins · Last progress May 14, 2025
The bill creates nationwide, science-based safety, medication, and integrity standards and a streamlined interstate compact that can improve horse welfare and generate wagering revenue for member States, but it substantially raises compliance and enforcement burdens, concentrates regulatory power (and associated transparency risks), may limit state flexibility, and could disadvantage smaller and non-member participants.
Racehorses, jockeys, trainers, and bettors across member States gain uniform, science-based breed-specific medication and safety standards, plus an open, peer-reviewed data registry to improve horse welfare, reduce injuries, and strengthen race integrity.
State governments and local racing organizations regain and retain primary rulemaking authority and can join the interstate compact through simple, substantially similar state-law enactments, reducing federal intrusion and lowering legislative barriers to participation.
Member State governments and racetracks can authorize interstate electronic wagering on covered races, creating new revenue streams and betting market opportunities for participating jurisdictions.
Racetracks, training facilities, owners, trainers, laboratories, and state agencies face substantial new compliance costs (fees, lab accreditation, testing, reporting, investigations) that raise operating expenses across the industry and for state budgets.
Owners, trainers, and other covered persons face expanded enforcement powers and harsher penalties (including lifetime bans, purse forfeiture), a rebuttable presumption of trainer liability for scientific medication violations, and public reporting rules that can cause reputational harm and make defense harder.
Racing participants, horses, and bettors may lose the consistency and oversight of a centralized federal anti-doping Authority, which risks uneven testing, safety lapses, and reduced consumer confidence in race integrity (potentially lowering wagering revenue).
Based on analysis of 16 sections of legislative text.
Repeals the federal horseracing statute and establishes a state interstate-compact (RHSO) to set breed-specific medication, safety, testing, and discipline rules for horseracing.
Repeals the federal Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act of 2020 and replaces its national regulatory structure with a state-led interstate-compact system. The compact creates a Racehorse Health and Safety Organization (RHSO) governed by a nine-member board, with breed-specific scientific medication control committees and a racetrack safety committee to write and implement medication-control, testing, safety, and discipline rules; it includes procedures for investigations, adjudication, sanctions (including lifetime bans and purse disgorgement), trainer presumptions of liability, conflict-of-interest rules, and staggered effective dates tied to state participation.