NTRA honors Mitch McConnell with new Statesman of the Year award

Mitch McConnell’s most enduring victory for horse racing was never a photo finish. It was the kind of leverage that changes how the business runs, from federal safety standards to tax treatment for owners and breeders, and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association marked that record with a first-ever Statesman of the Year Award.

The NTRA presented the honor to the retiring Kentucky senator on Tuesday, April 14, 2026, at its fourth Annual Kentucky Derby Kickoff Reception on Capitol Hill. Tom Rooney, the NTRA’s president and CEO, said McConnell had been a champion for the industry in Washington for more than four decades, crediting him with helping make the sport safer and advancing policies with benefits that reached beyond Kentucky. For racing, the award was more than ceremony. It was a reminder that the sport’s biggest regulatory and economic fights still run through Congress.

McConnell’s most concrete mark on the sport came through the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act. He introduced the Senate version on September 9, 2020, after the House passed its companion bill later that month, creating the federal framework that now governs uniform safety and anti-doping standards for Thoroughbred racing. In September 2024, McConnell again stepped into the fight, joining an amici brief with Representatives Paul Tonko and Andy Barr in support of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority at the Supreme Court. That kind of follow-through matters to horsemen, tracks and wagering interests because it helped protect the law after enactment and kept one of racing’s most important reforms from being weakened in court.

The NTRA said McConnell also helped secure permanent 100% bonus depreciation in last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a tax change with direct consequences for owners investing in yearlings, breeding stock and racing operations. The association described itself as a coalition of more than 100 horse-racing interests, including racetrack operators representing nearly 80% of U.S. pari-mutuel wagering handle and more than 30,000 owners, breeders and trainers, which underscores how much political access still matters in a sport built on thin margins and federal rules.

McConnell, elected to the Senate in 1984 and sworn in in 1985, said he would keep working for Kentucky through the rest of his term, which ends in 2027. That work lands in a state where the equine industry generates about $6.5 billion in annual economic activity and supports 60,494 jobs, while racing operations alone are said to account for $517 million and 9,333 jobs. For Kentucky, the award recognized a senator who helped keep racing’s interests visible in Washington. For the industry, it also raised the harder question of who carries that weight when he is gone.