Texas Thoroughbred racing left Wednesday's Texas Racing Commission meeting with its central problem unchanged: interstate simulcasting remains blocked, and Chairman Robert Pate offered no timetable for breaking the deadlock with the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority. The commission took no action after hearing from horsemen, breeders and track officials, leaving the industry looking toward the 2027 legislative session for a possible escape route. BloodHorse reported that Pate's position remains consistent with his earlier contention that Texas law gives the commission sole authority over racing in the state.
The dispute began in July 2022, when Texas stopped approving interstate exports of Thoroughbred signals because sending those signals can bring a track under HISA jurisdiction. Quarter Horse racing has not faced the same restriction, but Thoroughbred operators have absorbed the consequences. Pate said Texas would not place state employees under federal oversight while Texas pays the bill, and he indicated that a constitutional ruling upholding HISA would leave the state with “a real problem.”
There was at least evidence that Texas once sought a practical compromise. Pate said the commission had proposed an interim arrangement that would have allowed Texas tracks to resume exporting signals while the legal challenges continued, without conceding the state's position. HISA rejected that proposal, according to Paulick Report coverage republished by Yahoo News, while Pate said the commission had tried to work within the Fifth Circuit's rulings and Texas law rather than simply refusing to engage.
The wagering numbers explain why the meeting mattered. Lone Star Park produced only $10.3 million in wagering handle in 2026, compared with more than $81 million in 2021 before Texas stopped exporting its Thoroughbred signals. Texas Thoroughbred purses fell 19 percent from 2021 through 2025, while the state's Thoroughbred mare population dropped 48 percent over the same period. Those are not ordinary cyclical fluctuations; they are the kind of losses that shrink race dates, reduce buying power at sales and make it harder for owners to justify keeping mares and young horses in the state.
The Horse Industry Escrow Account has helped keep purses moving by directing taxes from equine-related purchases to racing and breeding, but Wednesday's testimony made clear that the account has not replaced the missing simulcast revenue. BloodHorse cited Jockey Club figures showing 230 mares bred in Texas in 2025, with the current-year total expected to fall between 200 and 210—roughly half the levels commonly seen from 2019 through 2023. The damage, in other words, is extending beyond the betting windows into the state's breeding pipeline.
Bryan Pettigrew, Penn Entertainment's vice president and general manager of Texas racing operations, told commissioners that changing the Texas Racing Act should be the industry's top legislative priority. Other proposals include expanding advance-deposit wagering, examining historical horse racing, redirecting about $8 million tied to the former greyhound industry and possibly raising the escrow account's $50 million cap to $100 million. Pettigrew warned that without legislative action, Sam Houston Race Park could miss additional years of simulcasting opportunity. The timing is critical: if the U.S. Supreme Court waits until June 2027 to resolve the HISA fight, Texas lawmakers could finish their regular session before the legal picture is clear.
For now, the commission's message is one of endurance rather than resolution. Preliminary injunctions have allowed Thoroughbred tracks in West Virginia and Louisiana to continue simulcasting under state rules, but Texas did not receive similar relief in its litigation. Unless the courts provide a new opening or lawmakers rewrite the state statute, Texas Thoroughbred racing remains caught between a commission unwilling to surrender regulatory authority and a commercial model that cannot thrive without interstate wagering.