The Horse Stall Theoryby Adam Thompson

Racing clearance

How hemp hurd gets into a racing barn

Why this page exists

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA), the national Thoroughbred racing regulator, and the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit (HIWU), the testing program, list cannabidiol (CBD) as a Controlled Class S7 substance. A racing horse that shows cannabinoids can be a violation. Hemp hurd is the woody core of the stalk. Cleaned industrial hurd is not an oil and it is not a treat. Horses can still mouth bedding.

A 2025 in-vivo study of hemp straw bedding found cannabidiolic acid (CBDA) in urine and advised at least 48 hours off hemp straw before competition if the product is not cleaned. The United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) has said it has found no correlation so far between hemp bedding and CBD positives, and it has had relatively few CBD findings. Those two facts can both be true.

Racing will not take “probably fine.” Racing takes a numbered washout on the exact product. This page is that path. It is not an approval.

How a washout study works

A washout study measures how long any cannabinoids from normal stall use stay in a horse’s blood and urine, and when they fall below the level that HISA testing reports.

  1. 1

    Baseline

    Clean sample on shavings

  2. 2

    Hemp stall

    Normal bedding use

  3. 3

    Samples

    Blood and urine

  4. 4

    Lab

    CBD, CBDA, THC

  5. 5

    The number

    Peak and clearance

  1. Baseline blood and urine samples are taken while horses are on ordinary shavings or straw. Results must be clean.
  2. Horses are bedded only on cleaned hemp hurd for a defined period under normal stall conditions. They stand, lie, and may mouth the material exactly as they would at a track.
  3. Blood and urine are collected on a set schedule during exposure and for several days after the hemp is removed.
  4. A certified lab quantifies CBD, CBDA, THC, and relevant metabolites. The output is the peak level reached and the time required to clear below the reporting limit.
  5. The published result gives HISA and the track a clear number: either the levels from ordinary bedding stay below detection, or they clear inside a short, practical window.

Published work on hemp straw bedding has shown urine positives (primarily CBDA) lasting up to 48 hours after exposure in a small number of horses. That is the current published data point. A properly powered washout study on cleaned, screened hemp hurd — the product used in the stall — is the missing piece.

Target conclusion of the study

The study is structured so the data support one of two regulatory outcomes that eliminate any realistic chance of a positive from normal stall use:

  • HISA removes cannabinoids (CBD, CBDA, and related compounds) from the substances not allowed in blood when the source is ordinary environmental exposure from cleaned hemp hurd bedding, or
  • HISA sets a reporting threshold high enough that the levels produced by normal bedding exposure fall below it. A horse living on cleaned hemp hurd cannot fail a blood test and therefore cannot be prevented from competing on that basis.

Either result ends the regulatory barrier. With the washout data published, a track can move from “shavings only” to “track-approved cleaned hemp hurd required” without creating a positive-test risk.

The players

  • HISA writes the Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) rules for covered Thoroughbred racing.
  • HIWU runs the testing program.
  • The Federal Trade Commission sits over HISA’s rules.
  • The track racing secretary is the person who already writes the bedding rule. On August 19, 2026, Racing Secretary Peter Iovino at Saratoga Casino Hotel confirmed it in writing: shavings only, because haulers will not take sawdust.
  • The attending veterinarian and the regulatory veterinarian at the pilot barn.
  • The trainer and the owner. Non-covered horses first.
  • Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Joseph J. Wakshlag, DVM, PhD, published equine CBD and CBDA pharmacokinetics and safety with Cornell colleagues. Oral 1 mg per kg of CBD or CBDA over six weeks appeared safe. CBDA absorbed more readily. That paper is about oil, not bedding. It is the lab and the horse team to put next to a bedding study.
  • Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) Animal Science. Dr. Nathalie L. Trottier works on equine nutrition, including hemp seed meal and cannabinoids in horses, with the College of Veterinary Medicine.
  • Cornell’s hemp program. Dr. Larry Smart leads plant breeding. New York has funded a hemp processing hub at Cornell AgriTech in Geneva, about $5 million, including hemp-lime equipment and a biomaterials building. Cornell can grow, process, and characterize the exact hurd used in a stall. Cornell is not the racing regulator. Cornell is the land-grant partner.
  • The New York Hemp Hub at AgriTech Geneva is the processing and hemp-lime service center for state businesses.
  • An independent analytical lab, using methods HIWU accepts, for cannabinoids in urine, plasma, and in the bedding itself.

There is no signed Cornell contract on this page. What follows is the ask.

The product under test

Cleaned, dusted, bagged industrial hemp hurd. The same spec as the stall product on this site. Not raw straw. Not floral hemp. Not oil. Every lot carries a certificate of analysis (COA), a lab sheet on each bag of hurd: delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), CBD, CBDA, the other cannabinoids, dust, and moisture.

The study, step by step

  1. Lot characterization. Cornell Hemp, AgriTech, or an equivalent fiber lab assays the bagged hurd. Publish the cannabinoid panel and the dust. If the lot is not clean, it does not enter a stall.
  2. Protocol and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). Cornell veterinary medicine and animal science draft a bedding-exposure protocol. Non-covered horses first. Not HISA-covered horses. Not race day. One group stays on pine shavings. One group goes on the cleaned hurd. Same diet. No hemp oil, no hemp treats, no hemp hay.
  3. Exposure. Horses live on the bedding for a defined window. Fourteen to thirty days is the proposal. Daily stall records. Limit free-choice eating as far as stall practice allows, and still assume some mouthing. That is the point of the test.
  4. Sampling. Plasma and urine on a schedule during exposure and after the horses move back to pine. Look for CBD, CBDA, 7-OH-CBD, and 7-COOH-CBD. The 2025 hemp-straw paper found CBDA higher than CBD after straw exposure, and 7-OH-CBD after oil. That difference is how bedding contact is told apart from an oil dose.
  5. Washout clock. Measure the days until the compounds are undetectable after the last hurd stall. That number is this product’s racing clearance window. If cleaned hurd is non-detect from day one, that is a finding. This page does not promise that result.
  6. Write the package. Study report, certificate of analysis, the Saratoga racing-secretary letter already in hand, and the USEF public statement that they have not tied hemp bedding to their CBD positives. Send it to HISA and HIWU as a request for an exposure note or a bedding pathway. Not as a request to permit CBD oil.
  7. Pilot barns that are not tested. The ninety-day commercial pilot stays on the existing plan: boarding and training barns that are not covered by HISA. Prove the $1,081 books. Then racing. Saratoga’s published count remains 1,820 stalls, $1,967,420 at that net.
  8. Specification. If the clearance holds, a racing secretary can write “cleaned hemp hurd permitted” the same way the current rule is “shavings only.” That is the barn-level switch.

Why Cornell is the right door

Cornell already runs the state hemp program, a new processing and hemp-lime hub, equine nutrition, and a veterinary cannabinoid lab that has published the 1 mg/kg CBD and CBDA safety work in horses. New York wants fiber and building markets now that floral CBD has flattened. A washout study on cleaned hurd sits in the middle of work the university is already funded to do.

It is still a proposal. It is not an award letter.

What this page does not say

  • HISA has not approved hemp bedding.
  • Cleaned hurd is not proven non-detect.
  • Oral CBD oil findings are not bedding findings.

Locked figures stay where they are. One stall $1,081. Saratoga 1,820 stalls, $1,967,420. NASS 2025 fiber $13,453,000. Dakota bag $16 per 30 lb. The reference mill is Dakota Hemp, Wakonda, South Dakota. The demo farm is the Oklahoma barn cluster, 44 stalls.

Stall ledger · Education · What each track allows as bedding