NY State Approves Plan for Equine Screening Bill

Both New York State legislative houses have accepted a plan by Gov. Kathy Hochul to provide funding for a new advanced equine imaging screening program at the Cornell Ruffian Equine Specialists Hospital adjacent to Belmont Park.

The moves by legislators signal the imaging program is all but certain to be approved in the coming weeks at the state Capitol—assuming the usual caveats about New York budget talks that anything can happen until the final fiscal bills are enacted.

The governor proposed her version of the plan in January, modifying an initiative first put forth by Democrats who controlled the state Assembly a year ago. Advocates—including the New York Racing Association, which would put up $2 million as part of the funding—say the plan will boost equine safety by providing insights into a racehorse’s possible physical problems before they become major ones.

The initiative is billed as a longitudinal study on Thoroughbred fetlock joint injury protection.

The Democrat-led New York Senate, in a nonbinding resolution passed earlier this week in Albany, essentially concurred without changes to the plan advanced in January by Hochul, a Democrat.

The state Assembly, in their separate nonbinding budget proposal, also adopted this past week, made a series of tweaks to Hochul’s 2025 state budget plan regarding the screening program.

The different ideas for the proposal will now be negotiated by the legislative and executive branches as officials seek to put in place a new state budget by the time the new fiscal year starts April 1.

The initiative calls for NYRA to invest $2 million for advanced imaging equipment at the Belmont area hospital run by Cornell. The state will add operating funds each year over the next three years—for a total of about $17 million during the period—generated by a tax hike on out-of-state advance deposit wagering providers.

The Assembly, which first floated the equine screening program in March 2024, seeks to make modifications to the Hochul plan introduced two months ago contained in her $252 billion state spending plan for 2025 that covers everything from public schools to Medicaid spending.

Assembly Democrats, in their nonbinding budget plan this past week, okayed provisions specifying that Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine at the end of the three-year study period would hold ownership of all equipment purchased for the new screening program.

The Assembly also wants any excess money from the program to be earmarked for the state’s racing regulatory duties instead of going to the budget’s overall general fund; it calls for Cornell to issue an annual report on the study’s findings. It also wants to put in law that research be conducted for racing occurring only at Belmont and Saratoga racetracks and that NYRA’s $2 million upfront contribution be used for the “exclusive purchase of screening and imaging capital equipment.”