You would think the bolded section would go without saying.


“California statutes do not prohibit active horse owners from being appointed to the regulatory board overseeing the sport. Beyond the chairman’s owner-trainer relationship with Baffert, the board’s vice chairwoman, Madeline Auerbach, and another commissioner, Dennis Alfieri, employ trainers and jockeys in California.

Joe Gorajec, a former chairman of the Association of Racing Commissioners International, a trade group of industry commissioners, said the system was doomed to fail in California and other states in which the regulators are in business with the people they are there to police.

“Minimal prohibitions should preclude active horse owners, trainers, breeders and jockeys, or anyone else that derives income from the business, to serve on a commission,” said Gorajec, who was executive director of the Indiana Horse Racing Commission. “Commissioners should be prohibited from wagering in the state they serve.””