ITM Telegraph — Churchill Asks the FTC to Investigate HISA, Plus the Saratoga Send-Off and the Full Tour Playoff Field | Tuesday, September 1, 2026

In The Money Telegraph

Tuesday, September 1, 2026 · By ITM Staff

Churchill Downs Asks the FTC to Investigate HISA

Disclosure: this story touches two matters ITM has reported on closely, and one of them involves a friend. Marshall Gramm is a friend and ITM contributor, and Ten Strike Racing was the company’s first commercial sponsor. We’ve tried to report the news below straight down the middle.

The biggest governance story of the racing year landed over the weekend. In a four-page letter dated August 28, Churchill Downs Inc. CEO Bill Carstanjen asked the Federal Trade Commission to require, or itself initiate, an independent review of HISA — citing what he called serious questions about the authority’s governance, transparency, technology controls, and accountability. Churchill, which owns both Churchill Downs Racetrack and the ADW platform TwinSpires, framed its standing around the integrity of the wagering product. The letter was addressed to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson and Commissioner Mark Meador and, notably, copied to all nine HISA directors and CEO Lisa Lazarus, along with a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers — among them Ted Cruz, Maria Cantwell, Mitch McConnell, James Comer, and Paul Tonko.

The letter braids together three threads that have dogged HISA in recent months. The first is the unresolved wagering episode Churchill’s letter calls the “Fair Hill Five.” The second is a related disclosure that a trainer connected to that matter had returned a positive test for a banned substance more than a month before the betting activity drew public attention — a positive not made public until after the fact. The letter pointedly declines to name that trainer; he has been identified in reporting elsewhere, including by Horse Racing Nation, as Angel Quiroz. The third, and the letter’s central focus, is the HISA Portal access at the heart of the case against Marshall Gramm.

Churchill is careful to separate the individual-conduct question from what it calls the institutional one. The letter says it does not seek to “excuse, minimize, or prejudge” any alleged misconduct by Gramm — before pressing the question it considers more fundamental: why was such confidential veterinary information accessible to an unauthorized user in the first place? The letter revisits Lazarus’s June 15 statement to the Thoroughbred Daily News that the circulating past performances could not have come from the HISA Portal, a position HISA later reversed, and asks who else may have accessed comparable information, how long any vulnerability existed, and what auditing was in place to catch it. It also notes HISA’s cost to the industry — more than $250 million to date, roughly 12% of it on technology.

Carstanjen’s bottom line is that HISA’s legitimacy, in his words, “depends on confidence that it is transparent, accountable, technologically competent” and subject to meaningful oversight. Asked for further comment, a Churchill spokesperson told Horse Racing Nation the letter speaks for itself. The move follows a call a week earlier from owner Mike Repole, a longtime HISA critic, to fund a private investigation of his own.

Both of the underlying stories — the Fair Hill wagering episode and the Gramm portal case — are ones ITM has followed closely all summer. For readers who want the background, PTF’s reporting on both is on the site: the HISA case against Marshall Gramm, its follow-up, and what horseplayers lost.

A $50,000 Guarantee for the Saratoga Send-Off

Saratoga isn’t done yet. This is closing week at the Spa — the meet runs through Labor Day Monday — and NYRA Bets has put real muscle behind the big Sunday. The $1,000 Saratoga Send-Off on Sunday, September 6 now carries a guaranteed $50,000 prize pool regardless of entries, with two NHC seats, a BCBC seat, and $28,000 in cash on the line. You can play online through NYRA Bets or on-track. New this week: $200 live-bankroll feeders run Wednesday through Saturday, with at least two $1,000 entries guaranteed each day — and all contests now close at the start of the late Pick 5, rather than Race 3. Register at nyrabets.com/big-money.

The ITM Horseplayers Tour Playoff Field

The road to the Tour playoffs keeps filling up. First, a great result worth sharing: Dave Nelson finished fifth in a recent Tour feeder and then went out and won Saturday’s BCBC qualifier — believed to be the second player to pull off that double this year. Here’s the full field of qualifiers through Week 13:

Tuesday’s Cards

Presque Isle Downs. Chance Rains kicks off September with an eight-race Tuesday card, first post 3:30 p.m. ET. Read Rains’ card →

Assiniboia Downs. Mikee P and Adam Discepolo go through Tuesday night’s Late Pick 4 at ASD — a $1 minimum with a $50,000 guaranteed pool at a 15% takeout, plus $3 rolling Pick 3s. Watch below.

More all week at inthemoneypodcast.com and on the ITM YouTube channel, with premium coverage on ITM Plus.