Churchill Downs Seeks Stay on $5.27M HISA Payment Ahead of Kentucky Derby

Churchill Downs Inc. is pushing back against a federal racing regulator's order to pay more than $5.27 million in delinquent fees, asking the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority's full board to stay the directive before a March 26 deadline that carries real operational teeth: miss it, and simulcast racing at CDI properties goes dark starting March 27.

The order, issued March 16 by a three-member HISA panel, directed CDI to pay $5,024,848.56 in principal plus $250,631.77 in interest, totaling $5,275,480.33, covering unpaid 2025 assessment fees tied to four tracks: Churchill Downs Racetrack in Louisville, Ellis Park, Turfway Park and Presque Isle Downs in Pennsylvania. The panel found CDI violated federal rules "by a preponderance of the evidence." CDI may also appeal the ruling to HISA's full board within 10 days of receiving it, and can separately request a stay on that 10-day payment clock.

The dispute sits just 46 days before the 2026 Kentucky Derby on May 2, making the simulcast threat particularly consequential. Under the law that created HISA, the authority can revoke a track's simulcasting privileges for any violation of its rules, and the panel order specifies that for each day the payment is late, CDI will be barred from conducting simulcast racing on the next scheduled racing day.

HISA's position is unambiguous on the nonpayment. The authority alleged CDI had not received "one cent" of the money it was due in assessment fees for 2025 and accused CDI of "freeloading," characterizing the company as the only racetrack entity covered by HISA that paid nothing in 2025.

The fee arithmetic has been a source of dispute on its own. HISA claims CDI owes over $6.3 million in 2025 fees, but the authority is currently pursuing the smaller figure of approximately $2.4 million calculated under a starts-only formula that CDI itself prefers. The $5.275 million panel order represents principal and interest on that partial claim, with HISA stating it plans to seek the remainder in a later action if it prevails in CDI's pending federal lawsuit. HISA described that strategy as a "two-phase approach meant to give CDI every benefit of the doubt."

CDI has not been passive in this fight. The company filed a federal lawsuit against HISA in 2024, arguing the fees were "unlawfully demanded," and that case remains pending. CDI and the New York Racing Association have jointly argued that HISA changed its fee assessment methodology away from the starts-only formula, producing what the plaintiffs call "illegally imposed" fees that violate both the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act. Their lawsuit contends that HISA's use of its own in-house enforcement panel to adjudicate the dispute amounts to an assumption of judicial powers in violation of Article III of the Constitution. The three-member HISA panel, however, ruled it is entitled to collect partial payment even while that federal challenge is pending.

With CDI's stay request now before HISA's full board and the March 26 deadline two days away, the authority's response will determine whether simulcast operations across CDI's four tracks face immediate disruption in the weeks leading up to the sport's most watched event.