Hope for the future of US racing as new regulator HISA looks back on a challenging year for the sport

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"There's no question that we, as an industry in the US, need to do a lot better if we want to secure our future." It's a sombre thought to start the week of the 40th Breeders' Cup, which everyone hopes will produce the kind of news racing loves: top-level competition, thrilling finishes and life-enhancing success for at least one set of previously unsung connections. 

The sport has been making headlines over here for the wrong reasons at times this year, notably after a dozen horse deaths at Churchill Downs during the spring meeting and 14 more at Saratoga in the summer. Two investigations were launched by HISA, the new regulator of racing across the US, whose chief executive, Lisa Lazarus, provided that quote in my opening sentence. 

For many, HISA is a source of hope for the sport as it seeks to put in place the same high standards from New York to California. But some in the game object to its very existence and an attempt to shut it down awaits adjudication from the courts, while three states still decline to acknowledge HISA's right to rule. 

There have been so many twists in that story that a writer for Trainer magazine opined: "Keeping up with the legal evolution of HISA is like playing monopoly onboard a ship in pitching seas". Lazarus laughs at this. "You can imagine how that feels for me," she tells the Front Runner. 

"It's disappointing there are still groups and people within racing that think going back to the state-by-state system of yesteryear is good for the industry. I'm a big proponent of, let's all talk about everything, let's get round the table and decide what the rules should be, but if you don't believe that HISA is a good thing in principle for the sport, if you don't believe that uniformity and professionalisation are good for the sport, then you are a detriment to horse racing in America." 

When the Breeders' Cup takes place at Santa Anita on Friday and Saturday, it will be the first time the meeting has been subject to HISA's new anti-doping and medication control programme, a significant moment. "California's always been a great jurisdiction, they've done a good job in the past," Lazarus says, "but now we know the rules that American racehorses are going to be subject to are the same ones they've been subject to for the last five months. They come in eyes wide open on what the programme requires." 

Lisa Lazarus: chief executive of US racing regulator HISA

Returning to the subject of equine injuries and how to avoid them, Lazarus says: "We're still very much in our infancy but if we didn't have HISA to take the lead in dealing with a lot of these welfare issues, it would be a lot more complicated for the industry to move forward together. 

"A lot of our early efforts were focused on some of the smaller racing jurisdictions that had a significant gap and had to get up to the level we need everyone to be at. I think we'll see by the end of the year some really good improvements in a number of jurisdictions in terms of equine injuries and equine fatalities but we really do need to do better." 

There has been speculation that this year's troubles could be the beginning of the end for dirt as a racing surface. Lazarus's view is a useful counter to such hyperbole. 

"The US has 90 plus racetracks," she notes, pragmatically. "Even if tomorrow we were all to agree that the only way forward was synthetics, there's no possible way that, within any reasonable period of time, we could transition that many racetracks to synthetics." 

She accepts there is a case for more use of synthetic surfaces, like the Polytrack and Tapeta familiar to British racefans, "because they have a lot of value and there's some data to indicate they can be safer. 

"But we have to also put a lot of effort into making our dirt surfaces safer. They aren't going away. I think there's a lot we can do to make them safer and I don't think there's any evidence yet that we need to eliminate them. 

Dirt surfaces in the US "aren't going away" says HISA chief executive Lisa LazarusCredit: Matt Wooley

"There's a lot of pieces to this puzzle, it's not as simple as, are synthetic surfaces better? It's, how much better, in what context, which weather, which tracks and how we put in place a plan to implement them." 

I ask about the whip, such a hot topic a year ago when HISA had just enacted its tight new rules in this area. "It's such an interesting case study about regulation change and change in culture," Lazarus says. "There was a tremendous amount of pushback. 

"Today, nobody talks about it. The number of violations has plummeted. It's really not an issue anybody raises with me any more. 

"We haven't studied this yet but the stewards tell me that jockeys are riding straighter in the stretch, so they have less interference issues, because they're steering and not whipping. We'll see whether the data bears that out. 

"When we first launched it, jockeys felt that we were targeting them, because it was one of the first rules that we started with. But now we've put in place so many good programmes around jockey safety, jockey concussions, jockey mental health, that the jockeys are starting to see that HISA does have a lot of good things for them and we're not just there to punish them for using the whip too many times." 

Hopefully, that'll be the last time we have to mention the whip this week. Santa Anita basked in glorious Californian sun on Sunday, lifting the mood of those visitors who don't usually experience such conditions in late October. It was a day to make you think that maybe everything is going to be fine. 

Read these next:

What's on this week: Cheltenham Gold Cup hope Gerri Colombe set for Down Royal return plus Breeders’ Cup bonanza at Santa Anita 

King Of Steel given go-ahead for Breeders' Cup Turf mission with Frankie Dettori to ride again 

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The Front Runner is our unmissable email newsletter available exclusively to Members' Club Ultimate subscribers. Chris Cook, a four-time Racing Reporter of the Year award winner, provides his take on the day's biggest stories and tips for the upcoming racing every morning from Monday to Friday. Not a Members' Club Ultimate subscriber? Click here to join today and also receive our Ultimate Daily emails plus our full range of fantastic website and newspaper content.