HISA addresses regulatory vets role amid scrutiny over scratches

Regulatory veterinarians sit at one of the sport’s most powerful choke points: they can stop a horse from running before the gate opens, and HISA is now drawing a brighter line around how and why that happens.

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority’s weekly Ask HISA column turned to that role on May 11, as questions around scratched horses moved from stable-area frustration to a broader debate about safety, fairness and who gets the final say. HISA says attending and regulatory veterinarians are its frontline workers for equine safety and welfare, a job that includes pre-race and post-race inspections, ad-hoc exams, treatment-record review, medication and anti-doping compliance, prohibited-practices monitoring, necropsies and safety-and-welfare committee reviews.

That authority matters because the scratch is not just a lost start. HISA says horses can be placed on the Veterinarians’ List for illness, injury, epistaxis, shockwave treatment, stand-down medications, physical distress, medical compromise, unsoundness or recency. Horses listed for unsoundness, recency or medical distress must clear a multi-step process that includes an attending-veterinarian exam, a timed work in front of the regulatory veterinarian and a post-work inspection before they can return to competition.

The limits of that power are just as important. HISA says regulatory veterinarians can place a horse on the list after a race if the horse is unsound, has bled, is physically distressed or medically compromised, or tests positive for a prohibited substance. If a claimed horse is then scratched for those reasons, stewards order the claim void. HISA also says regulatory veterinarians may inspect or observe any covered horse at a track, whether or not it is entered to run.

The scrutiny comes with numbers that make the policy harder to dismiss. HISA’s May 8 Equine Health Advisory said 3,297 unique horses were placed on the Veterinarians’ List as Unsound in 2025, and 1,904 of those horses, nearly 60%, had not made a subsequent start by March 31, 2026. Through the end of the first quarter of 2026, about 20% of racing- and training-related fatalities involved horses that were still on the list as Unsound, had been scratched by regulatory veterinarians before a recent race, or had come off the list within the previous six months.

HISA is treating that pattern as more than a paperwork issue. The authority said it issued the advisory to guide better care and injury reduction, and it pointed to wearable biometric sensors as one tool that could sharpen those decisions. The review goes further: in December 2025, HISA launched a comprehensive audit of Veterinarians’ List and Stewards’ List categories, with changes targeted for 2026 after surveys and in-person interviews with regulatory veterinarians and stewards. HISA says the current categories are legacy tools created decades ago and vary widely across states and racetracks, a mismatch it wants to close before the next wave of scratches, disputes and safety calls hits the same old fault lines.