As Concerns Over Drugs Mount, the Jockey Club Says It Will Pay for Testing SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The Jockey Club, horse racing's most influential group, will pay up to $500,000 for out-of-competition drug testing over the next two years, and its chairman warned horsemen, regulators and racetracks that doping and cheating would decimate the sport's bottom line unless complete national reform began immediately. Rob Carr/Getty Images Ogden Mills Phipps, center, the chairman of the Jockey Club, in May at the Kentucky Derby, which was won by his horse Orb. The group released results of a poll it commissioned that showed drugs and integrity concerns loom larger to bettors than any other issue facing the sport. The poll found that when handicapping races at certain racetracks or in certain states, nearly four in five bettors - 79 percent - considered the possibility of illegal drug use. By a 9 to 1 margin, bettors said they bet less, not more, because they had to factor in the possibility of illegal drug use. In the study of 816 committed bettors and handicappers nationally, the strongest advocates for change were those who bet more than $10,000 per month: 89 percent "strongly support" national uniform medication rules; 93 percent want those rules sooner. "It is critically important that strict, uniform rules be adopted immediately because of the commercial consequences," said Robert Green of Penn Schoen Berland, which conducted the poll from July 29 to Aug. 2. The margin of error for the study is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Last year, a New York Times investigation showed how a pervasive drug culture put horses and riders at risk and found that 24 horses a week died at America's tracks, a rate greater than in countries where drug use was severely restricted. Horse racing officials have taken significant steps to clean up their sport. Still, the Jockey Club chairman Ogden Mills Phipps said that unless the sport moved more quickly, it risked not only losing customers at an alarming rate, but also could invite federal intervention. "We know that Congressional leaders are frustrated with the speed of our reforms, and that if we don't get our own house in order, they will do it for us," Phipps said, acknowledging that Congressional staff members attended the group's annual round table. The facts are clear: if we care about the future of our sport, our equine athletes cannot be burdened by the taint of drugs. The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act - written by Senator Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, and Representative Joe Pitts, Republican of Pennsylvania - has been introduced in Congress and would give the United States Anti-Doping Agency the authority to develop rules for permitted and prohibited substances. Usada, a nongovernmental organization, is the official antidoping agency for the United States Olympic team and has worked with Major League Baseball and other professional leagues to eliminate performance-enhancing drugs. Its credibility as a vigilant watchdog was cemented when it was widely credited for its relentless pursuit of the cyclist Lance Armstrong, who this year admitted that he had systematically used drugs during his riding career. Heidi Stirrup, a spokeswoman for Pitts, was in attendance and said Pitts had also written a bill that would repeal the Interstate Horse Racing Act of 1978, which allows simulcast wagering to take place across state lines and is the financial engine of the parimutuel industry. Last year, such wagering accounted for 90 percent of the $11.4 billion wagered on the sport in North America. "There is an urgency to get something meaningful done, and there are some members willing to go back and start at square one," said Stirrup, who said Congressional hearings on the integrity and safety of horse racing were planned for the fall. Eight mid-Atlantic states, including New York, have agreed to operate their racetracks under one set of rules restricting medications to treat illness and injury in racehorses to just 24. Those medications will be subject to strict limitations, and the laboratories conducting drug tests must be accredited under standards created by the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, which conducts medication and drug-testing research for the industry.