HISA unveils 2026 budget, shifts funding formula to starts only

HISA used its virtual town hall to talk dollars, but the real message for horsemen was simpler: the authority is moving the bill from a purse-weighted system to one based only on starts, and that changes who feels the hit.

For 2026, HISA’s gross budget stands at $77.2 million, with a net figure of $60.6 million if available credits are fully used. The biggest line item is still the anti-doping and medication control program, which takes 66.5% of the budget. That is the kind of number that explains why this debate never stays theoretical for long. Trainers, owners and consignors do not care about budget language in the abstract. They care about what lands in the invoice stack, and the new starts-only formula is built to move that burden differently across circuits and operations.

That matters because HISA has already lived through a hard lesson on assessments. The earlier formula, which tied charges to each state’s share of starts weighted by purse money and capped at 10% of purses, was ruled unlawful for the 2022 to 2024 period in a court ruling reported this spring. HISA said its racing-starts-only assessment rule went into effect in 2026, a cleaner method on paper and a less forgiving one in practice for anyone looking for relief through purse structure or state-by-state economics.

The budget itself was not a surprise to those watching closely. HISA had posted the proposed 2026 budget for public comment in July 2025, with comments due by 12:00 p.m. ET on Friday, July 25, 2025. The authority’s racetrack safety rules were approved by the Federal Trade Commission before taking effect on July 1, 2022, and its anti-doping and medication control rules were approved on March 27, 2023 before being implemented on May 22, 2023. The regulatory framework is now established. The fight is over how much it costs, and who shoulders it.

That friction has not gone away. In 2024, HISA’s approved gross budget was $77.5 million and its net budget after credits was $57.8 million. Per-start costs, which were about $198 in 2023, rose to about $265 in 2024 and were estimated as high as $342 in 2025. Smaller tracks have felt that pressure sharply. Emerald Downs was approved for 51 race dates in 2026 even as it warned HISA fees could threaten the meet.

HISA keeps pointing back to safety, and it has data to show it is still pushing that side of the mandate. But the big elephant remains trust, especially around budgets and oversight. Until horsemen believe the money is landing fairly, every new formula will be read through the same lens: what it costs to run, and who is left paying for the system.