“Whip rules were adopted and promoted as evidence that racing had modernized its welfare standards. Their credibility depends not merely on drafting rules, but on consistent and meaningful enforcement especially in the sport’s highest-profile races.”
Video stills from Saturday’s Preakness Stakes at Laurel Park appear to show winning jockey Paco Lopez raising his whip hand above helmet level before striking Napoleon Solo on at least three separate occasions in the stretch run, conduct explicitly prohibited under HISA Rule 2280(c)(1).
It is the same rule violation that triggered the six-month suspension Lopez completed just weeks before the race.
The stills, taken from the race broadcast, show Lopez wearing the white helmet aboard the #6 with his whip arm visibly elevated above helmet level at three distinct points in the stretch. The rule is unambiguous and bright-line by design. There is no threshold or gray area. The wrist does not cross the helmet. If the stills accurately represent what occurred, the question of whether a violation took place is not a close one.
On Monday, PETA distributed a media release to racing journalists, including Past The Wire, containing the stills and calling on HISA to investigate. The organization is calling for forfeiture of Lopez’s $120,000 winner’s share and banishment from racing. That is PETA’s characterization of the appropriate remedy, and reflects their organizational position on horse racing generally.
What the stills show is a separate matter and that is what warrants examination here.
By Monday night, TDN’s Sue Finley reported that HISA had already announced an investigation. In an email statement, HISA said: “The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority is aware of the concerns raised regarding Paco Lopez’s ride in the referenced race at Laurel Park. In accordance with the standard regulatory process, the Stewards at Laurel will review the race footage and all relevant facts to determine whether any action is warranted under HISA’s riding crop rules. We will defer to the Stewards’ independent review and adjudication process and will not comment further while that review is ongoing.”
That response is now on the record. What it produces is HISA’s next answer to give.
The Suspension That Wasn’t Fully Served
Lopez received a six-month suspension from HISA on September 23, 2025, the most significant penalty the authority had issued for whip violations following a December 4, 2024 incident at Parx Racing in which he struck his mount in the upper neck area after the wire. The suspension followed a sustained pattern of accumulating violations: Lopez had been suspended by HISA at least six additional times in 2025 alone and had amassed 22 whip violations since HISA’s Racetrack Safety Program took effect in July 2022.
Lopez relocated to Louisiana and rode through the suspension period. At the recently concluded Fair Grounds meet, he won 17 percent of his starts. He was, by any practical measure, never off a horse.
Past The Wire raised this issue publicly as it was unfolding, formally submitting questions to the Louisiana Racing Commission, Churchill Downs Inc. which owns Fair Grounds and HISA CEO Lisa Lazarus regarding enforcement, consistency, and the integrity of a suspension that could be rendered meaningless by crossing a state line.
Lazarus responded publicly on X: because of the ongoing Louisiana litigation, HISA could not count Lopez’s rides or violations there against him. The practical result was that a six-month suspension issued by HISA was never actually served.
Churchill Downs Role
The Churchill Downs Inc. angle warrants specific attention and has not been previously addressed publicly.
CDI has historically and publicly asserted its authority as a private property owner to exclude participants it deems a threat to the integrity of racing, most notably in the multi-year exclusion of trainer Bob Baffert. That precedent established clearly that CDI believes it possesses independent authority, separate from any regulatory mandate, to decide who rides and trains at its properties.
During the period Lopez was serving his HISA suspension, CDI was simultaneously engaged in an active fee dispute with HISA, one that would eventually result in a Board Panel ruling, a threatened signal halt, and a settlement whose terms remain sealed. CDI was not in a cooperative posture with HISA during this period.
And yet CDI made no move to exclude Lopez from Fair Grounds on the basis of his active HISA suspension. The standard industry practice and the ethical expectation is reciprocal enforcement regardless of the litigation status of the jurisdiction involved.
A company that banned a Hall of Fame trainer over a therapeutic medication overage, which ironically is now legal, and that was simultaneously adversarial with HISA over fees, chose not to exercise its own stated property rights to honor a suspension issued for repeated horse welfare violations at its own track. That choice has never been publicly explained.
The Town Hall Question That Went Unanswered
On April 21, 2026, HISA hosted a virtual Town Hall featuring CEO Lisa Lazarus, CFO Jim Gates, Ron Moquett, david Ingordo, and outside legal counsel. Past The Wire submitted questions in advance and publicly, including a direct challenge to the suspension enforcement gap.
If the Louisiana litigation prevented HISA from taking enforcement action there, why did HISA not require Lopez to serve the remaining balance of his suspension from the moment he attempted to return to HISA-covered tracks? Was that option considered? If so, why was it not exercised?
Lazarus addressed the question at the Town Hall. Her answer was consistent with her earlier public statement on X: the Louisiana litigation prevented HISA from taking action there, and those months counted as time served.
Why not count from Lopez’s return to HISA-covered tracks, received no public answer.
Lopez returned to HISA-covered tracks on April 1 at Tampa Bay Downs. He was riding again as if the suspension had concluded on schedule, with the enforcement gap neither closed nor explained.
Past The Wire asked the question twice on the record and received the same answer both times.
The Preakness
On May 16, 2026, Paco Lopez rode Napoleon Solo to victory in the $2 million Preakness Stakes at Laurel Park, the sport’s second jewel of the Triple Crown and the biggest win of his career.
Video stills from the stretch run indicate Lopez raised his whip hand above helmet level before striking the horse on at least three occasions. Past The Wire has reviewed those stills. The images are not ambiguous.
HISA Rule 2280(c)(1) prohibits exactly this conduct. It is the rule Lopez was suspended for violating. It is the rule HISA CEO Lisa Lazarus personally referenced in a May 2025 email to Lopez’s counsel, documented in the HISA ruling, in which she wrote that “raising the crop with his wrist above the helmet is unacceptable” and that her goal was “not to penalize him, but instead to encourage him to comply with the rules.”
He won $120,000 as his share of the Preakness purse.
HISA is now investigating. The Laurel stewards are reviewing the footage. TDN has reported the story. The machinery of review is in motion.
What Past The Wire reported the jurisdictional gap, the unenforced suspension, the CDI contradiction, the unanswered question is the context that machinery is now operating inside of. We raised these questions when they were inconvenient and before the Preakness made them unavoidable. We asked them on the record and received an answer which made no sense. A suspension that can be dodged is not a suspension at all.
The stills speak for themselves. The record speaks for itself. And for that record, if you bet Iron Honor, you should have a bad taste in your mouth.
What HISA does next will be its answer to all of it.
History repeats, you’re warned……
Related: The Ethics Gap: Paco Lopez, Cockfighting and the Selective Outrage of Horse Racing | Two Sports. Two Standards. One Question. | A Seat at the HISA Table — And Questions That Deserve Answers
