HISA Fees in Horse Racing: What Your Owner Bill Actually Pays For

HISA fees on an owner’s bill pay for two federal programs — the Racetrack Safety Program and the Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program — at an average cost of $265 per start in 2024, up from $198 per start in 2023. Across the whole sport that comes to $160,015,567 collected in assessments since HISA began operating in 2022, against $2,097,850 collected in fines, both figures through 15 July 2026. The money buys drug testing, investigations, racetrack accreditation, jockey welfare services and the data systems behind them. Owners, racetracks and state racing commissions all pay in. How the cost reaches your particular account depends on your state and your trainer’s billing practice, and that is the part worth asking about before you sign anything.

What the HISA line on your bill is buying

HISA assessments fund two programs: the Racetrack Safety Program and the Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program. That is the official account, stated plainly before anything is added to it. HISA’s chief financial officer, Jim Gates, gave it on 29 July 2026 in response to a question from owner John Kosciak in Thoroughbred Daily News’s Ask HISA column, which asked where owner fees go beyond salaries and what happens to fine money.

Gates listed eight spending categories and named a handful of specific services under them. He did not attach a dollar figure to any single category. That gap is not a scandal — most regulators report at the program level — but it does set the limit of what an owner can verify from the outside. You can confirm what the money is for. You cannot, from that answer alone, confirm how much of your share went to laboratory analysis rather than administration. If you want the regulator’s structure and rulebook rather than its budget, our owner’s guide to what HISA is covers that side.

What HISA names as funded, and what it leaves unpriced

What HISA says the money funds	Named specifics in HISA’s answer
Drug testing and laboratory analysis	None given
Investigations and enforcement	None given
Technology and data systems	HISA Portal (equine treatment records), HISA CHECK (injury-risk assessment), HISA Horse In-Sight (health and performance)
Research	Equine health, safety and welfare research
Education and outreach	Concussion education and protocols
Jockey welfare services	Mental health and wellness resources, nutrition counseling
Accreditation	None given
Administration	None given

Who pays HISA besides you

HISA is funded by three payers — owners, racetracks and state racing commissions — and only the racetrack share has a published formula. Gates’s phrasing was direct: HISA “is funded primarily through fees paid by owners, racetracks and State Racing Commissions.” The racetrack assessment is the one governed by a written rule, and it is the one a federal court has now ruled on. The owner and commission shares are named but not itemized in the same answer.

The three HISA payers, and how each share is set

Payer	How the share is set	Published in detail?
Owners	Named by HISA as a primary funding source	No owner-level rate given in HISA’s answer
Racetracks	Each track’s proportionate share of projected starts in covered races in its state, under the Cost Methodology Rule	Yes — starts-only from 1 January 2026, with a year-end true-up against actual starts
State racing commissions	Named by HISA as a primary funding source	Mechanism not detailed in HISA’s answer

Two of those three rows say the same thing, which is that the split is not public at the level an owner would need to audit it. I take the practical lesson to be this: the number you can actually act on comes from your trainer, not from HISA. HISA sets what a state and its tracks owe; your invoice reflects a billing decision made in your barn.

What HISA has cost per start, and why the number moves

The average HISA cost per start rose from about $198 in 2023 to about $265 in 2024, and HISA projected as high as $342 for 2025. Those figures come from HISA’s own budget town hall, reported by Thoroughbred Daily News on 24 April 2025, where HISA also put its cost to the industry at roughly a 20% increase on pre-HISA spending. The 2025 number was a ceiling HISA expected to come in under; the 2026 projection of about $293 assumed more states joining the covered pool, which would spread the same budget across more starts.

HISA cost per start, 2023 to 2026

A per-start average is a blunt instrument, and it is worth saying why. It divides a national budget by a national starts count, so it tells you what the sport carries, not what your horse carries. A horse that makes four starts in a year sits under a different arithmetic than one that makes twelve. Set against the training, veterinary and insurance lines in our annual breakdown of what it costs to own a racehorse, a few hundred dollars a start is a small line. It is also the only line on the bill set by a federal regulator rather than by a person you can negotiate with.

Where the fine money goes

Fine revenue goes back into HISA’s own budget and is never rebated to owners. Gates was explicit: “By law, all money collected through fines must also be used to fund HISA’s work.” So fines do offset what the industry pays — they reduce the amount that has to be raised elsewhere — but the offset arrives as a smaller future assessment, not as a credit on your statement. Nobody gets a refund because somebody else got caught.

$2,097,850 in fines against $160,015,567 in assessments. Fine revenue covers about 1.3 cents of every dollar HISA has collected.

That ratio is worth holding onto, because the assumption behind the question is usually that rule-breakers substantially fund the enforcement. They do not. On HISA’s own figures through 15 July 2026, honest participants fund the program almost entirely, and the fines are a rounding line. Whether that reads as reassuring or infuriating depends on where you sit. I read it as the ordinary shape of regulation: enforcement is a cost the compliant carry, and any regime that funded itself from fines would have an incentive problem worth worrying about.

Where a fine actually goes

The 2026 change that reshuffled who pays what

From 1 January 2026, HISA sets each racetrack’s assessment on projected starts alone, after a federal court found the previous purse-weighted formula unlawful. The United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky issued a declaratory judgment on 1 April 2026 finding HISA’s 2022–2024 purse-weighted fees “arbitrary and capricious, and therefore unlawful,” and holding the formula contrary to law to the extent it was based on a state’s tracks’ perceived ability to pay. Thoroughbred Daily News reported the ruling and the methodology change together, noting the court granted declaratory relief only and declined to vacate its prior orders.

The practical effect is a redistribution rather than a discount. The old rule gave equal weight to projected starts and projected average purses, which let a state’s bill track how much money its tracks appeared able to pay. The new rule counts starts only, with a year-end true-up against actual starts. Smaller tracks are expected to feel this more than the well-funded ones, because purse size no longer softens their share. Churchill Downs, which brought the case, was carrying more than $2.4 million in unpaid HISA assessments as of 24 March 2026 and must pay under the starts-only structure going forward.

If you race a modest string at a regional track, this is the change to watch on next year’s bills. Nothing in the ruling reduces what HISA needs to raise. It changes which tracks — and by extension which owners, wherever pass-through happens — carry more of it.

The old rule against the new one

What the HISA assessment does not cover

The HISA assessment is a separate charge from every other recurring cost of keeping a horse in training. It does not replace or absorb any of the following, all of which continue to arrive on their own schedule:

• Your trainer’s day rate, plus veterinary and farrier work — the bulk of the monthly bill for keeping a thoroughbred.
• Mortality and major-medical premiums, which are priced off the horse’s value rather than its starts.
• State racing commission licensing fees, which are levied by the state, not by HISA.
• Entry fees, nomination fees and jockey mounts on race day.
• Shipping between tracks, and sales commissions when you buy or sell.

Questions to put to your trainer before you sign

The single most useful thing an owner can do about HISA fees is ask how their own trainer bills them, because that is the one variable in this whole structure a private agreement controls. These are the questions I would want answered in writing before signing a training agreement:

1. Do HISA-related charges appear as their own line on my statement, or are they folded into the day rate?
2. If they are passed through, what is the amount per start or per horse, and what document sets it?
3. Who absorbs the difference when the year-end true-up moves the track’s actual assessment?
4. Which state am I racing in, and does the assessment reach me through the track, the commission, or the barn?
5. If I move the horse mid-year, does any HISA charge follow the horse or stay with the previous trainer?

A trainer who can answer all five without checking is a trainer who reads their own bills. That is a useful thing to learn about somebody before you hand them a horse.

What you can verify, and what you cannot

Common questions about HISA fees

What are HISA fees on a horse racing bill?

HISA fees are assessments that fund the federal Racetrack Safety Program and Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program. They pay for drug testing and laboratory analysis, investigations and enforcement, technology and data systems, research, education and outreach, jockey welfare services, accreditation and administration. HISA has collected $160,015,567 in assessments since 2022, through 15 July 2026.

Who pays HISA assessments?

Owners, racetracks and state racing commissions all pay HISA, according to HISA’s chief financial officer. Only the racetrack share has a published formula: from 1 January 2026 each track pays a share of its state’s assessment proportionate to its share of projected starts in covered races, trued up at year end against actual starts.

Do HISA fines reduce what owners pay?

HISA fines reduce the sport’s overall bill but never appear as a credit to an individual owner. By law all fine revenue must fund HISA’s work, so it offsets what has to be raised through assessments. The scale is small: $2,097,850 in fines against $160,015,567 in assessments through 15 July 2026, or about 1.3 cents in every dollar collected.

How much are HISA fees per horse?

There is no single published per-horse HISA fee for owners. The industry-wide average cost per start was about $198 in 2023 and about $265 in 2024, with HISA projecting up to $342 for 2025. What reaches an individual owner depends on the state, the racetrack’s assessment and the trainer’s billing practice, so the per-horse figure has to come from your own trainer rather than from HISA.

The line worth reading

HISA fees are the one recurring cost in racehorse ownership that no negotiation touches. The programs they fund are public, the categories are published, and the arithmetic is unremarkable — a few hundred dollars a start against a bill that runs to tens of thousands a year. What is not public is the split: how much of the $160,015,567 went to laboratory analysis rather than administration, and how much of your state’s assessment traveled from the track to your statement. Until HISA itemizes the first, the only version of this number you can verify is the one your trainer can show you on paper.