Ethics CasesSport

Cases · Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) / Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit (HIWU) · 2020–2026

Federal Drug Rules for Racehorses: HISA's Medication Program on Trial

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act of 2020 created a private nonprofit authority, overseen by the Federal Trade Commission, to write national anti-doping, medication and safety rules for Thoroughbred racing. Its Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program took effect on May 22, 2023, enforced by the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit. The program brought uniform testing, strict liability for trainers and barn searches. It also drew complaints about inflexible penalties for trace contamination, and constitutional lawsuits claiming that private bodies cannot enforce federal law. The Fifth Circuit has twice held the enforcement provisions unconstitutional, and the question is before the Supreme Court.

By Tanner Simkins, editor

Timeline

  1. Federal prosecutors charge more than 30 defendants, including prominent trainers, in racehorse doping cases.
  2. Congress passes the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, creating a private authority under FTC oversight.
  3. HISA's Racetrack Safety Program takes effect.
  4. The Fifth Circuit holds HISA's rulemaking structure unconstitutional; Congress then gives the FTC power to modify the Authority's rules.
  5. The FTC approves the Anti-Doping and Medication Control rule; the program starts but is paused on March 31.
  6. The ADMC Program takes effect nationwide, enforced by HIWU.
  7. HISA defers provisional suspensions of trainers in metformin cases pending a scientific review.
  8. The Supreme Court vacates a Fifth Circuit ruling against HISA's enforcement powers and remands it.
  9. The Fifth Circuit again declares HISA's enforcement provisions unconstitutional.
  10. The federal government asks the Supreme Court to review the Fifth Circuit's decision.

The ethical issues

  • Strict liability for trainers when a banned substance may have come from contamination.
  • Whether a private body should investigate, prosecute and punish under federal law.
  • Uniform national rules versus state control of racing.
  • Protecting horses' welfare and bettors' trust through tougher testing.
  • Fairness when the science behind a rule is still developing.

Stakeholders

StakeholderInterests & obligations
RacehorsesProtection from drugs that enhance performance or mask injury.
Trainers (Responsible Persons)Fair rules, accurate testing and proportionate penalties.
HISA and HIWUCredible, uniform enforcement of anti-doping and medication rules.
Federal Trade CommissionOversight of the Authority's rules and sanctions.
Horsemen's associations and statesLimiting federal and private control over a state-regulated industry.
Bettors and fansConfidence that races are clean and fair.

The case

Background

Before 2023, American Thoroughbred racing had no national rulebook. Medication rules, testing and penalties were set state by state; HISA describes its mission as implementing, for the first time, a national, uniform set of rules for every participant and racetrack.[1]

The weaknesses became hard to ignore in March 2020, when federal prosecutors in New York charged more than 30 defendants in four related cases arising from a multi-year investigation into racehorse doping.[2] According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, trainers, veterinarians and drug distributors had schemed to make, distribute and secretly give racehorses performance-enhancing drugs while deceiving regulators.[2] One of the trainers, Jason Servis, obtained hundreds of bottles of a compounded drug called SGF-1000, which he believed regular drug screens could not detect. Nearly every horse in his barn received it, including Maximum Security, who crossed the finish line first in the 2019 Kentucky Derby. According to prosecutors, he approved veterinary bills that hid the drug’s cost under the line item “Acupuncture & Chiropractic.” Servis was sentenced to four years in prison in July 2023.[2]

The rules and governance

Also in 2020, Congress passed the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act. It recognized a private, self-regulatory nonprofit, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA), and required it to write national rules for Thoroughbred racing covering anti-doping, medication control and racetrack safety.[1] The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) oversees the Authority: it publishes proposed rules for public comment and must approve or disapprove them, and people sanctioned by the Authority can appeal to an FTC administrative law judge and then to the Commission.[1][4]

The Act also called for anti-doping enforcement to be contracted out. A planned partnership with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency fell through, so the Authority hired Drug Free Sport International, which operates as the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit (HIWU).[5] HIWU investigates, charges and adjudicates potential violations; its decisions become the Authority’s final decision, subject to review by an administrative law judge and the FTC.[5]

The Authority’s Racetrack Safety Program began on July 1, 2022. Its Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Program followed on May 22, 2023.[1]

What the medication program changed

The ADMC Program divides prohibited substances into two groups. Banned Substances may not be used, possessed, administered or trafficked in relation to a covered horse at any time. Controlled Medications are allowed in training but not close to a race or a workout used to clear a horse to race. The anti-bleeding drug furosemide (Lasix) remained permitted on race day except in races for 2-year-olds and in stakes races.[3]

Testing became national and centralized. HIWU selects horses using what it calls an intelligence-based strategy, and all program laboratories are accredited by the Racing Medication & Testing Consortium (RMTC). HIWU sends notices of positive tests to the “Responsible Person,” usually the trainer, and files charges. Anti-doping violations are heard by an arbitral body administered by JAMS, an independent provider; controlled medication violations go to an internal adjudication panel whose members are selected by HISA and HIWU. Anonymous whistleblower lines were also launched.[3]

The launch was rocky. The program first took effect on March 27, 2023, but was paused on March 31.[3] The FTC explained that a federal court decision had delayed it until May 1, and pushed the start to May 22 to avoid “chaos and confusion” in the run-up to the Triple Crown races. The vote was 3–0.[4]

Enforcement in practice

In its first full calendar year, 2024, HIWU recorded 76,534 sample collection sessions from 26,585 horses. There were 364 adverse analytical findings, or positive tests: 59 for banned substances and 305 for controlled medications. Investigators carried out 404 barn searches at 51 racetracks in 20 states, sent 118 recovered products to laboratories and filed 11 possession cases. Cases from 2024 took an average of 80.8 days to resolve, measured as of March 15, 2025.[8] HIWU credited consistent enforcement and its investigative presence with contributing to what HISA’s metrics showed was a record-low fatality rate in Thoroughbred racing in 2024.[8]

Critics focused on how the rules treated people who had not tried to cheat. Under the program’s strict liability approach, a positive test or possession of a banned product can be a violation regardless of intent.[5][10] A 2026 Fifth Circuit opinion described one veterinarian who forgot to clean out his trailer and still had two buckets of a newly banned substance two weeks after the rule took effect. Authority investigators found the buckets, fined him $5,000 and banned him from practice for 14 months, even though, the court noted, the Authority conceded that he bought the substance before it was banned and never tried to use it on a horse. An administrative law judge upheld the penalty, and the FTC declined to review it.[5]

The metformin problem

Metformin, a diabetes drug, became the leading example of the contamination problem. It is a Banned Substance because, HISA says, it has no recognized therapeutic use in racehorses, and HIWU had intelligence that some trainers were using it to try to gain an edge.[10] But it is widely prescribed to people, and trainers argued that their horses’ positives came from contact with handlers who took the drug.[11]

In October 2023, HIWU found that its six accredited laboratories had not all used the same limit of detection for metformin in blood. It set a uniform limit and withdrew charges against two trainers whose samples would not have been reported under the new standard.[9] In June 2024, the HISA board asked HIWU to defer provisional suspensions of trainers in metformin cases while RMTC scientists reviewed the evidence. Horses that tested positive would still be disqualified and provisionally suspended.[10] HISA board chair Charles Scheeler said there was “limited scientific information available regarding the substance’s use in horses.”[10]

The change was requested by horsemen, but the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association (NHBPA) used it in court. In a motion to the Fifth Circuit, it argued that the policy showed HISA, not the FTC, had the “last word” over the rules, and that the original metformin rule had a “dubious scientific basis.” HISA chief executive Lisa Lazarus asked why a horsemen’s group would oppose a measure “requested by, and supported by, the very horsemen they represent.”[11]

In November 2025, after a University of California, Davis study, HISA proposed a minimum reporting level of 4.0 nanograms per milliliter in blood, with confirmation testing in blood only. The proposal said this level reflected intentional administration and minimized the chance of positives from inadvertent exposure. Nine unresolved metformin cases remained on hold pending FTC approval, and the drug remained banned.[12]

Aftermath: the constitutional fight

HISA’s structure has been in court since its creation. In 2022, the Fifth Circuit held the Act unconstitutional because the FTC could not overrule the Authority’s policy choices; Congress responded by giving the FTC power to “abrogate, add to, and modify” its rules.[5] In 2024, the court held that the rulemaking problem had been fixed but that the Authority’s enforcement powers, including investigations, subpoenas, searches and fines, still violated the private nondelegation doctrine.[5] The Supreme Court vacated that ruling on June 30, 2025, and sent it back for reconsideration in light of FCC v. Consumers’ Research.[6]

On June 11, 2026, the Fifth Circuit reissued its decision, declaring HISA’s enforcement provisions facially unconstitutional “insofar as HISA is enforced by private entities that are not subordinate to the FTC.” It rejected the challengers’ due process, Appointments Clause and anti-commandeering claims, and acknowledged that it disagreed with the Sixth Circuit, which has upheld the enforcement provisions.[5] The federal government asked the Supreme Court to review the ruling on August 14, 2026; as of October 2026 the petition was pending.[7]

The core dilemma

Strict, uniform rules enforced by an independent body can protect horses and restore trust in a sport damaged by doping. But strict liability can punish people for contamination they did not cause, and handing investigation and punishment to private organizations raises the question of who holds the enforcers accountable.

Competing values

  • Horse welfare vs. fairness to trainers: tough rules deter doping but can catch the careless or unlucky.
  • Uniformity vs. local control: one national rulebook replaced a patchwork of state rules.
  • Speed vs. due process: penalties can take effect before appeals are decided.[5]
  • Independence vs. accountability: a private enforcer may be insulated from industry pressure but also from democratic control.
  • Settled rules vs. evolving science: the metformin limits changed as the research developed.

Strongest arguments

For HISA’s program: Federal prosecutions exposed doping that state systems had missed.[2] The program created national testing, uniform laboratory standards and independent adjudication.[3][9] In 2024 it tested tens of thousands of samples, searched hundreds of barns and found positives in a small fraction of samples.[8] When the science on metformin was uncertain, it paused suspensions and commissioned research.[10][12]

Against it, or for major limits: Strict liability produced penalties for inadvertent possession and for findings that may have come from human contamination.[5][11] Laboratories initially applied different detection limits.[9] The Fifth Circuit has held that private enforcement without FTC supervision violates the Constitution.[5] Horsemen’s groups argue that HISA, not the government agency, effectively controls the rules.[11]

Applying the frameworks

Justice & fairness (Rawls)

Behind a veil of ignorance, not knowing whether you would be a trainer, a bettor or the owner of a clean horse, you would want doping caught and punished. You would also want protection against being punished for something you could not reasonably control, accurate testing applied the same way everywhere, and a fair hearing before serious penalties. The laboratory harmonization and the proposed metformin reporting level move toward that kind of fairness. Penalties for forgotten buckets and trace contamination look less fair.

Utilitarian

A utilitarian weighs fewer injured and doped horses and greater betting integrity against the costs of false positives, compliance burdens and lost livelihoods. HIWU’s data on testing volume and positive rates, and HISA’s reported fall in fatalities, suggest real benefits, although causes are hard to isolate. Strict liability has a utilitarian logic: it makes sanctions more certain and evasion harder. The question is whether its occasional injustices are outweighed by the doping it deters.

Care ethics

Care ethics starts from the most vulnerable party: horses cannot refuse drugs or speak about pain. A caring system prioritizes keeping them safe, which supports tough rules. Care ethics also attends to the people in the relationship, including grooms and trainers whose livelihoods depend on racing. A caring regulator listens and adjusts, as HISA did with metformin, rather than applying rules mechanically.

Walk it through: the Simple Decision Model

  1. Spot the issue: A trainer’s horse tests positive for a trace of a banned human medication.
  2. Gather facts: The concentration, laboratory method, possible sources of contamination and the trainer’s record.
  3. Test options: Full strict-liability penalty; disqualify the horse but defer the trainer’s suspension; set a scientific threshold for reporting.
  4. Check codes and law: ADMC Program rules, FTC review procedures and court rulings on enforcement power.
  5. Decide and document: Explain the scientific basis for the decision and apply it consistently.
  6. Communicate and follow up: Publish the policy, monitor new findings and submit rule changes for FTC approval.

What’s settled and what’s contested

  • Settled: The ADMC Program has been in force nationally since May 22, 2023, enforced by HIWU; banned substances are prohibited at all times; the Fifth Circuit has declared the enforcement provisions unconstitutional as applied by private entities not subordinate to the FTC, while the Sixth Circuit disagrees.[1][3][5]
  • Contested: Whether strict liability is fair in contamination cases; whether the metformin changes show responsiveness or improper rule-making; whether private enforcement is constitutional; how much of the drop in fatalities the program caused.[5][8][11]

Why this case matters

HISA is an experiment in governing a sport through a private body backed by federal law. It shows the attraction of uniform, independent anti-doping enforcement and the difficulty of making strict rules fair when the science is uncertain. The case also asks a question that reaches beyond racing: when private organizations investigate and punish, who is accountable for how they use that power?

See also: Santa Anita 2019: When Racehorses Kept Dying.

See also: Medina Spirit and Bob Baffert: A Kentucky Derby Winner Disqualified.

Key terms

Strict liability
The anti-doping principle that athletes are responsible for any prohibited substance in their bodies, whether or not they meant to take it.
Due process
Fair procedures before a sanction: notice, a chance to respond, an impartial decision-maker and a right of appeal.
Institutional accountability
Structures that make a sport organization explain its decisions and face consequences: clear authority, transparency, appeals, independent oversight and enforcement.
Duty of care
The responsibility of coaches, organizations and institutions to protect the health, safety and well-being of those in their charge. It is not a license for total control.
Sanction certainty
The principle that the likelihood of being caught and punished deters misconduct more than the severity of the punishment.
Stakeholders
Everyone with something at stake in a decision: athletes, coaches, parents, officials, fans, employees, sponsors, media, communities and regulators, including the less visible ones.

Definitions from the Ethics Cases glossary.

Discussion questions

  1. Should a trainer be suspended for a trace of a banned drug that may have come from a groom's medication?
  2. Is it acceptable for a private organization to investigate, charge and fine people under federal law if a government agency can review its decisions later?
  3. Did HISA act responsibly by pausing metformin suspensions, or did it undercut its own rules?
  4. Do the benefits of one national rulebook outweigh the loss of state control?

Sources

  1. About Us — Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority
  2. Thoroughbred Racehorse Trainer Jason Servis Sentenced To Four Years In Prison — U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York
  3. HISA Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program to Relaunch May 22, 2023, Under Enforcement of HIWU — Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit
  4. FTC Extends Effective Date of Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority's Anti-Doping and Medication Control Rule to May 22 — Federal Trade Commission
  5. National Horsemen's Benevolent & Protective Association v. Black, No. 23-10520 (on remand from the Supreme Court) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
  6. National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association v. Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, Inc. (No. 24-472) — SCOTUSblog
  7. Docket No. 26-201: Federal Trade Commission v. National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association — Supreme Court of the United States
  8. HIWU Annual Report 2024 — Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit
  9. Update on ADMC Cases and the Harmonization Among HIWU-Accredited Laboratories of Metformin's Limit of Detection in Blood — Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit
  10. HISA Announcement Regarding Metformin — Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority
  11. NHBPA Files Motion Over Metformin Policy Change — Thoroughbred Daily News
  12. HISA and HIWU Announce Proposed Updates to Testing Specifications for Metformin in Response to Recommendations from the RMTC's Scientific Advisory Committee — Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority