- HISA’s proposed 2027 budget totals $72,730,613, down about 5.75% from the $77.17 million assessed for 2026.
- Racing pays $449.97 for every start, spread across 161,635 covered starts in 19 states.
- Sample-collection credits of $16.24 million would cut what the industry actually remits to $56,488,543.
- Public comment closes at noon ET on July 27, after which the board votes and files with the Federal Trade Commission.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority asked American Thoroughbred racing on July 17 to fund a $72,730,613 budget in 2027, about $4.4 million less than the industry was assessed this year. Public comment on the proposal closes at noon Eastern on July 27.
The Authority puts the gross reduction at more than $4.4 million against the 2026 budget, roughly 5.75%, and says the gross budget has fallen about 9.50% since 2025.
Anti-Doping Takes $53.6 Million Of $74 Million In Expenses
Budgeted 2027 expenses run to $74,034,117 against $1,303,503 in revenue from fines, laboratory test fees and track reimbursements. The gap is what racing pays.
Anti-doping and medication control is the bulk of it at $53,574,017 in the proposed 2027 budget, roughly 72 cents of every dollar the Authority plans to spend. Inside that program, the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit accounts for $35,292,590, down from $37,231,493, and laboratory testing falls to $17,860,583 from $19,478,062.
Technology is budgeted at $8,981,688, a line that carries the Authority’s Palantir and Amazon Web Services relationships along with the outside developers who build its reporting portals. Racetrack Safety and Veterinary Services are the only departments that grow. Racetrack Safety rises to $3,218,382 from $2,973,956 on higher professional services spending, and Veterinary Services to $1,027,091 from $936,551.
Two administrative lines cut against the cost-discipline story. Interest expense more than doubles to $312,601 after the Authority’s outside auditors determined that interest on its outstanding loans and line of credit had to be accrued in full each month, rather than at the partial rate the 2026 budget carried on the expectation that some of the debt would be forgiven. Public relations spending goes the other way, dropping about 29% to $192,000.
Fines feed back into the budget by statute. The Authority levied $200,637 in Racetrack Safety fines and $543,500 in anti-doping fines in the first six months of 2026. It expects to levy roughly $1,087,000 in anti-doping fines next year and to collect only $180,000 of it. Fines are not due until suspensions are served, the Authority notes, and the largest ones tend to land on people who are not expected to return to racing. Racetrack Safety fine collections are budgeted at $330,000.
The organization behind those numbers is small. HISA runs the program with 27 full-time employees. In 2025 it covered 168,116 race starts, 346,577 recorded workouts and about 39,000 covered persons at 41 Thoroughbred racetracks in 19 states.
Credits Cut The Cash Ask To $56.5 Million
The $72.7 million is a gross figure. Credits cut it, and they accrue when a state pays its own sample collection personnel instead of having the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit bill for the work.
The Authority expects the industry to claim $16,242,070 of those credits, bringing the net to $56,488,543. The comparable 2026 figures were $16,560,446 in credits against a $60,611,331 net, so the cash actually collected falls about 6.8% year over year.
Florida And Pennsylvania Carry The Biggest State Shares
The assessment appendices set each state racing commission’s gross share by starts run between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026, a count that excludes the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar. Florida’s share covers 20,172 starts.
| State | 2027 gross assessment |
|---|---|
| Florida | $9,076,759 |
| Pennsylvania | $8,321,712 |
| New York | $8,155,674 |
| Kentucky | $7,909,091 |
| Ohio | $6,734,224 |
| California | $5,441,916 |
Track by track, Gulfstream Park carries the single biggest bill at $5,985,027. Laurel and Pimlico together are assessed $3,673,091, Churchill Downs $3,065,184, Santa Anita $2,857,748, Saratoga $1,806,172 and Del Mar $1,549,241.
Racing runs under one national rulebook across the states with legal horse betting that stage Thoroughbred meets, and the assessment follows that rulebook state by state.
The money reaches the Authority through state racing commissions, and the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act leaves them little room to decline. If a commission does not elect to remit, HISA collects the per-start fee directly from covered persons, and the state is then barred from charging its own fees or taxes for anti-doping, medication control or racetrack safety at covered races. That is the reverse of legal sports betting, where each state writes and enforces its own rules.
Louisiana And West Virginia Sit Outside The Assessment
Neither state appears in the assessment tables. A preliminary injunction from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana blocks the Authority’s rules in both.
If that injunction dissolves and HISA begins operating there in 2027, the Authority has asked the Federal Trade Commission for permission to assess those racetracks on a pro rata basis, which would lower the bill for everyone else. It made the same request for any Texas track that conducts covered races next year.
HISA Cuts Its Lawsuit Budget As The Enforcement Fight Nears The Supreme Court
HISA cut its lawsuit budget 23% to $2,310,000 from $3,000,000 and trimmed its general legal line to $690,000 from $830,000, even as the case threatening its enforcement authority heads back to the Supreme Court.
Ruling on June 11 after the Supreme Court sent the case back to it, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that a congressional amendment had cured the delegation flaw in the Authority’s rulemaking power but that its enforcement arm did not survive the same test.
“Insofar as HISA is enforced by private entities that are not subordinate to the FTC, we DECLARE that HISA violates the private nondelegation doctrine,” the court wrote in National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association v. Black, affirming the district court in part and reversing it in part.
The Fifth Circuit agreed on July 14 to hold its mandate while the Authority prepares a petition for certiorari, so the enforcement machinery the budget funds keeps running for now. If the Supreme Court refuses the case, that stay dissolves.
The nondelegation fight has run since 2021 through the Fifth, Sixth and Eighth circuits, and it governs the tracks that horse betting runs on.
What Happens Next
Comments go to comments@hisaus.org under the subject line “Proposed 2027 Budget.” The Authority’s board then votes on a final budget and files it with the FTC under the commission’s oversight procedures at 16 CFR Part 1 Subpart U.
