Cleaning Up America's $40 Billion Horse-Racing Industry

Besides announcing Thompson's appointment on Wednesday, the NTRA also said it had formed the Safety and Training Alliance, a consortium of breeders, trainers, owners, and track operators.

By the end of 2009, says NTRA president Alex Waldrop, the alliance will have put in place a voluntary track certification program – based on the college accreditation model – to encourage racetracks to reform their practices.

"I've sensed a will to change like I've never seen," says Mr. Waldrop.

Related

Dutrow Questions Desormeaux's Brown Ride

Jockey's Deaf Son Pins Hope on Big Brown

It's Not Just Us: Animals Get the Flu, Too

For example: 18 of the 38 racing states have already outlawed steroids. Some tracks have started providing retirement stalls for old horses. And next week's Breeders' Cup is the first major race to both outlaw doping and be run on a synthetic track.

"The confluence of events that took place this year acted as a catalyst to ... create a sense of urgency that didn't exist a year ago," says Kentucky state Sen. Damon Thayer (R). "If Eight Belles can be remembered as the horse that created that sense of urgency, then she did not die in vain."

Some observers are more skeptical. US Rep. Edward Whitfield (R) of Kentucky, said this summer that federal oversight may be necessary to rein in disparate and greedy stakeholders that have, despite past warnings from Congress, failed to overhaul the sport.

The emergence of off-track parimutuel betting in the 1990s doubled annual horse-race wagering to $15 billion but also brought intense new pressures into an already competitive world.

Critics say the new industry alliance faces a fundamental problem: Although 56 racetracks have volunteered for the certification program, there are more than 100 racetracks in the US. Thus, facilities with the worst records on horse welfare are least likely to join the alliance, leaving them unregulated, says Keith Dane, director of equine protection at the Humane Society in Gaithersburg, Md.