Why is a temporarily suspended horse trainer racing at Lone Star Park?

A horse trainer temporarily suspended from most U.S. racetracks after a banned drug was allegedly found in his barn has been racing his horses anyway at Lone Star Park.

That’s because the Texas Racing Commission, which regulates the Grand Prairie track, still doesn’t recognize the authority of the private, self-regulatory agency that cited the trainer.

Instead of cooperating with the nascent Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority like most states with thoroughbred racing, Texas is fighting its constitutionality in court. To sidestep HISA jurisdiction, Texas in July 2022 ceased simulcasting its races throughout the U.S.

We again urge the Texas Racing Commission to drop its legal battle against HISA. We first made this call in 2022 as the new rules started taking effect, and again last year after a spate of high-profile horse deaths at Churchill Downs.

HISA was established in 2020 and tweaked in 2022 by Congress to clean up the horse racing industry, long-plagued with cases of overworked horses dying on unsafe tracks or being doped to improve their performance. It created hundreds of uniform standards around track safety, horse and jockey wellness, and medication.

Like other sports in which athletes travel across state lines to compete, horse racing should be subject to consistent rules and enforcement nationwide. A patchwork of state-by-state regulatory practices is confusing for trainers, dangerous for horses and unfair to bettors.

Case in point is that of Robertino Diodoro. The well-known trainer In March was provisionally suspended by HISA’s anti-doping enforcement arm after a banned drug was allegedly found in his barn at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas.

Diodoro has not been allowed to enter new races at tracks under HISA jurisdiction while his case is pending a confidential proceeding. So he brought his operation to Lone Star Park, where one of his horses recently won a $400,000 race.

Timothy Steadman, an attorney for Diodoro, told us in a statement that his client denies the allegations against him. He noted HISA guidance that a provisional suspension “does not in any way change the presumption of innocence and is not an early determination of guilt.”

Merlinda Gonzalez, vice president of operations at Lone Star Park, told us in an email that, “it is our understanding that Robertino Diodoro currently is licensed and in good standing with the Texas Racing Commission, making him eligible to train at our facility.”

The commission’s executive director, Amy Cook, said in an email that “we do not honor HISA rulings based on the Texas Racing Act statutory conflict currently in litigation.”

So a trainer temporarily barred, at least for now, from competing in most states can come to Texas as if under no suspicion? That doesn’t seem right.

This case demonstrates exactly why HISA is necessary. Uniform standards are essential for the industry to move beyond its troubled past and thrive in the future.

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