With regulators and leading industry groups leading the charge, many leaders believe sweeping medication reform could become a reality in early 2013.

In what could prove to be a landmark meeting of the Association of Racing Commissioners International (RCI) Model Rules Committee earlier this month, medication reforms aiming for simplicity and uniformity were adopted. The new model rules are similar to the Jockey Club’s Reformed Racing Medication Rules first introduced in August 2011. They promise simple standards, harsh punishment for repeat violators and first-time abusers of non-therapeutic drugs, and uniform regulations and testing procedures from state to state.

The model rules were developed through input from The Jockey Club, the industry’s Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, the New York Task Force on Racehorse Health and Safety, and the RCI Scientific Task Force, which was organized by Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association (THA) Chairman Alan Foreman. The task force included veterinarians and experts on drug labs and testing.

"What we did was actually kind of huge," said RCI President Ed Martin. "We’re moving toward this structure where we’ll have a list of regulated therapeutic medications with threshold levels, and ask all the racing commissions to adopt it by reference, which would give us uniformity