Usada Ceo Travis Tygart Explains How His Team Will Clean up Racing
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2021 WRITERS' ROOM EXCLUSIVE: THE TDN KENTUCKY OAKS TOP 10 FOR FEBRUARY 11 USADA CEO TRAVIS TYGART by Bill Finley EXPLAINS HOW HIS TEAM In the month since we last served up a TDN Kentucky Oaks Top 10, there have been a number of stakes for 3-year-old fillies, but WILL CLEAN UP RACING not a lot of movement on our list. Sun Path (Munnings) drops off the list after a disappointing fourth-place finish in the Silverbulletday and we=ll wait to include Girl Daddy (Uncle Mo) until she has her first official workout in 2021. Moonlight d=Oro (Medaglia d'Oro) came out of last weekend looking like the top threat from the West after her win in the GIII Las Virgenes S., but has been sidelined with a knee chip. Charlie=s Penny (Race Day), the winner of the Silverbulletday S., is also off the trail after suffering a hairline fracture in her shin. Cont. p6 IN TDN EUROPE TODAY AUSTRALASIAN FLAVOUR TO GOFFS FEBRUARY Travis Tygart | Getty Images Rubira, a listed-winning Australian-bred daughter of Lope De Vega, was the lone six-figure lot at Goffs February. by Joe Bianca Click or tap here to go straight to TDN Europe. Not too long ago, Lance Armstrong was revered as an American hero. The winner of seven straight Tour de France titles, Armstrong brought the sport of cycling into the mainstream and the story of his unprecedented success after recovering from testicular cancer inspired athletes everywhere. But, as the public later found out, it was all built on a lie. Armstrong was a cheater, and his extensive involvement in an explosive doping scandal tarnished his legacy forever, stripping him of nearly all of his fraudulently gained athletic accomplishments. The revelations from that scandal rocked the sports world and marked one of the most staggering falls from grace in recent memory. And it likely wouldn't have happened without the United States Anti-Doping Agency and its CEO, Travis Tygart. Racing has suffered a fall from grace of its own in the past few years. Once a staple of American culture, the game's public support has steadily waned since its peak in the mid-20th century. Cont. p3 PUBLISHER & CEO Sue Morris Finley @suefinley [email protected] SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT Gary King @garykingTDN [email protected] EDITORIAL [email protected] Editor-in-Chief Jessica Martini @JessMartiniTDN Managing Editor Thursday, February 11, 2021 Alan Carasso @EquinealTDN Senior Editor Steve Sherack @SteveSherackTDN Racing Editor Brian DiDonato @BDiDonatoTDN Deputy Editor Christie DeBernardis @CDeBernardisTDN Associate Editors Christina Bossinakis @CBossTDN Joe Bianca @JBiancaTDN News and Features Editor In Memoriam: Ben Massam (1988-2019) ADVERTISING [email protected] Director of Advertising Alycia Borer Advertising Manager Lia Best Advertising Designer Amanda Crelin Advertising Assistant/Dir. Of Distribution Rachel McCaffrey Advertising Assistants Amie Newcomb Kristen Lomasson Photographer/Photo Editor Sarah K. Andrew @SarahKAndrew With extreme cold temperatures and the possibility of ice in and around Hot Springs, [email protected] Arkansas, Oaklawn park has cancelled its live racing programs from Saturday, Feb. 13 through Monday, Feb. 15, and will reschedule the three graded and one listed stakes Social Media Strategist Justina Severni that were set to take place. See page 14 for story. | Coady Associate Producer Katie Ritz SHARP HIGH ON HELLO HOT ROD 11 Director of Customer Service Tired of striking out at the claiming box, owner George Sharp added Vicki Forbes significantly to his racing stable at Fasig-Tipton earlier this week. [email protected] Marketing Manager NY SPORTS VENUES TO REOPEN AT 10% CAPACITY 13 Alayna Cullen @AlaynaCullen Officials at the New York Racing Association applauded the news that Director of IT & Accounting New York sports arenas and stadiums can reopen at limited capacity. Ray Villa [email protected] [email protected] TODAY’S GRADED STAKES ET Race Click for TV WORLDWIDE INFORMATION 11:15a Al Maktoum Challenge R2-G2, MEY AmWager PPs ------- International Editor 11:50a Al Rashidiya-G2, MEY AmWager PPs ------- Kelsey Riley @kelseynrileyTDN [email protected] European Editor Emma Berry [email protected] Associate International Editor Heather Anderson @HLAndersonTDN Newmarket Bureau, Cafe Racing Sean Cronin & Tom Frary [email protected] 60 Broad Street, Suite 100 Red Bank, NJ 07701 732-747-8060 | www.TheTDN.com TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 3 OF 17 • THETDN.COM THURSDAY • FEBRUARY 11, 2021 USADA's Travis Tygart Joins TDN Writers' Room cont. But two massive scandals, one involving the spate of fatal breakdowns at Santa Anita in 2019, the other a bombshell series of FBI indictments alleging reprehensible and widespread drugging of horses that came out last March, plunged the sport into an existential crisis. These tragic public relations nightmares finally shook racing out of the inert fog it had operated under for far too long, and presented a crossroads: either clean up your business, or have it all come crashing down once and for all. Enter Tygart. Late last year, the United States Congress, within an omnibus spending bill that included aid for coronavirus relief, passed the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act. It is a plainly groundbreaking piece of legislation for racing, but its most notable provision is that drug enforcement, which has frankly been a running joke in the sport for decades, will soon fall under the purview of USADA and Tygart, arguably the most respected anti-doping authorities in the world. So what, exactly, does that mean for the future of racing and how it will operate in the new HISA era? In his first public interview since USADA was tasked with an entirely new sport to regulate, Tygart sat down with the crew of the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland Wednesday. Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Tygart participated in an expansive, candid, illuminating discussion on the transformation we should expect to see in the coming years as he and his crew take the regulatory reins. AIt's obviously a huge responsibility, but one that we're fully ready to embrace to learn the nuts and bolts of the industry that we don't know,@ Tygart, who grew up near Ocala, said about USADA entering a new domain in racing. AWe're honored to be part of it. We feel like it's a tremendous privilege. We recognize that we're going to have to work every day and every night to prove that we're the right organization for this. Cheating, honesty, ethics, and the rule of sport are the same across all sports. So while some might want to say there's a difference between equine anti-doping and medication control programs and what happens in humans, the mentality of cheating and trying to get an advantage against the rules, is the same. So we're really looking forward to putting in a gold standard program that people in the industry can have a lot of satisfaction and pride in, that it's being done at the highest levels, with an equal opportunity to win playing by the rules, which is all any athlete--whether you're a trainer, owner of a horse or a human athlete--can ask for.@ Tygart was invited to speak at the 2012 The Jockey Club Round Table, soon after the Armstrong scandal broke, where he was first introduced to the flimsy anti-doping rules that have proved so inefficient for the sport in America. Cont. p4 TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 4 OF 17 • THETDN.COM THURSDAY • FEBRUARY 11, 2021 TDN Writers' Room cont. AI really started looking at the policies around anti-doping and medication control within the industry and they were just completely antiquated,@ he recalled. AThey were years behind what the human world, as well as the equine and Thoroughbred horse racing industry around the world had done as far as uniform policies. Other places don't have 38 different racing jurisdictions run by the states, with frequently conflicted people that have an interest in the outcome without transparency, without good quality testing, without laboratory accreditation that is uniform. It actually reminded me of, and I drew the comparison to, what the Olympic world looked like prior to us coming into existence. So having a uniform policy, where you can have confidence that when a horse runs in California, it's going to be running under the same rules and allowances and free of drugs as in Kentucky and in New York too, is going to be a game changer I think, right out of the gate.@ Tygart then explained in detail the process that USADA has put in place for human sports, which it will try to replicate in racing. He outlined two keys to its efficacy in particular: getting ahead of new drugs so that trainers can't just move from doping agent to doping agent before regulators catch up, and a tip line from affected parties in the industry. AI think it's really important that we begin the education with the industry on this, and I always get the question,'Well, how's the testing going to be different?'@ he said. AJust to look at testing is, again, an antiquated, old way of looking at modern anti-doping. How you professionalize and ensure that the athletes' rights and their health and safety are going to be protected, it has to start with education. That's going to be uniform, education about the rules across the country. It's going to have to have a research component involved to ensure that things that might not be tested for today in a robust way can be tested for.