Recent action by the Louisiana Racing Commission that weakens medication standards is shortsighted, ill advised, and will very likely pose a significant health risk to horses and jockeys competing in that state. The decision by Louisiana officials to allow more permissive medication policies is all the more brazen when juxtaposed against the cooperative efforts and positive direction that so many stakeholders in our sport are moving in, with enhanced safety, accountability, and integrity measures that have been implemented, including the creation of a central governing authority similar to other major American sports.
The National Thoroughbred Racing Association and its member organizations represent virtually every segment of the sport of Thoroughbred racing: horseplayers, racetrack operators (including Fair Grounds Race Course’s owner Churchill Downs Inc.), advance deposit wagering operators, breeders, owners, and trainers. Collectively, we are committed to supporting safety and welfare reforms and investment in new emerging technologies and related safety measures that are the core elements highlighted in our current Safety Runs First initiative, a public awareness campaign that launched during the lead-up to this year’s Triple Crown.
While the campaign and some of its initiatives are new, some of the programs highlighted began as far back as the early 2000s. Key subjects include advancements in veterinary protocols; the use of wearable biometric technology that can identify horses that may be at risk of injury for early intervention by trainers and vets; advanced data analytics (including the use of artificial intelligence) to screen horses for risk factors; additional deployment of advanced diagnostic imaging technologies; and greater emphasis on state-of-the-art surveillance coupled with good old-fashioned boots-on-the-ground security. The end result is a more comprehensive ecosystem of care for our equine and human athletes than at any time in the history of America’s oldest sport.
Research reinforces that this increased emphasis on safety and integrity is exactly what both core and casual racing fans expect of us. Make no mistake, we are seeing positive results. A 34% decline in racing fatalities since 2009, as measured by The Jockey Club’s Equine Injury Database, is not a statistical anomaly. It’s a very positive trend that underscores our industry’s commitment to safety. These and other improvements focused on the safety and welfare of the horse make the actions being undertaken in Louisiana all the more puzzling and disappointing.
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Louisiana has a long and storied history in Thoroughbred racing, and the Fair Grounds is America’s third-oldest racetrack. Unfortunately, with its recent rule changes, Louisiana is threatening the viability of racing its own state. At the very least, this action may relegate the state to being a minor-league outlier. The decision by the Louisiana Racing Commission will make it more difficult for owners and trainers whose horses are expected to compete in other jurisdictions to continue to justify racing there. In fact, many have expressed their dismay and disappointment with these new policies and they have signaled their doubts about continuing to race there. That alone should be enough to give Bayou State regulators reason to reverse their decision to enact this ill-conceived “emergency rule.”
At a time when health insurers are under fire for raising premiums and rejecting claims while health care costs continue to rise, Christine O’Brien is trying to grow UnitedHealthcare’s book of commercial business in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Lanette G. Hebert, based in Rayne, serves as the southwest 4-H regional coordinator for the LSU AgCenter, bringing over 35 years of service to Louisiana’s 4-H youth development programs. Throughout her tenure, she has worked to empower youth, strengthen volunteer networks and build programs that foster leadership, citizenship and essential life skills. Last year, Hebert had a hand in hosting the Growing Careers … Beyond the Rice Field pilot program — an effort to introduce high school youth to the science and business of rice production, sponsored by the Louisiana Rice Promotion Board.
Hebert’s passion for community and education reflects her belief that investing in young people creates a stronger, brighter future for Louisiana.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What does your role with the AgCenter look like, beyond the rice field program?
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We develop educational programs, and one that we’ve focused on is ag awareness. Out of our advisory process, someone suggested that we focus on the rice industry, since the LSU AgCenter H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station is within the southwest region.
Lanette G. Hebert serves as the southwest 4-H regional coordinator for the LSU AgCenter, bringing over 35 years of service to Louisiana’s 4-H youth development programs.
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Do you plan to host another Beyond the Rice Field program in the future?
We’re going to propose that we do it every other year. We highlight all careers available in the ag industry, whereas this one was targeted just on the rice industry, so we plan to alternate them — one general ag awareness program and then the rice program.
What activities and curriculum did the students participate in for the rice field program?
We really called upon the professors at the rice research station. They went out with entomologists into the rice fields, looked for bugs and then evaluated the bugs and discussed how they would impact the rice crop.
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In our agronomy lab, they took home seed plots and did different treatments on them. They learned about drones and got to fly drones. Every one of the six sessions highlighted the careers, but then also did some type of hands-on activity.
How are young people integral to the future of Louisiana agriculture?
That’s the driving force behind our ag awareness program, especially with this rice field day, is a concern for young people who are entering careers that are agriculture-based. We cooperate with the College of Ag at LSU to highlight those careers, from fashion merchandising to food science to agronomy.
We’re trying to expose them to a vast array of career opportunities in agriculture and what educational opportunities are available to them. With our rice field day, we emphasized internships and high school job opportunities that would expose them to see if they’d like this career choice.
One of the key things we’re trying to do is develop their awareness of the careers but also give them hands-on opportunities.
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One of Lanette Hebert’s career highlights with her job at LSU AgCenter is taking 131 people to Ireland, where they spent 10 days studying agriculture in the country to compare it to Louisiana’s landscape.
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How does 4-H develop leadership skills and teach students the soft skills needed in the workforce?
The ag awareness program is just one of the things we offer. Our statewide forage program offers opportunities in three core areas besides agriculture: STEM, healthy living and citizenship and leadership.
We start the 4-H program in fourth grade, and a lot of that is where they are exploring and learning about the different subject matters. As they stay with us in the 4-H program, we transition that into leadership. If a fourth grader starts off interested in the nutrition project and cooking, they’re learning how to measure ingredients, but we’re hoping, by 10th grade, they’re conducting the workshop for the fourth grader.
Louisiana 4-H is pretty unique. We have seven statewide leadership boards where we focus on subject matter and developing leaders in those areas. Every parish also has a team leadership program. That club focuses very heavily on leadership development.
How does 4-H work with external partners in the state — farmers, researchers, etc. — to bolster the program?
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We’re always looking for community collaborators who are aligned with the missions of our 4-H program. The rice field day was a great example. It was awesome to see the passion that our researchers, research associates, extension faculty and farmers have for their career paths.
That’s always something, when we find a partner that has the same goal and passion of reaching young people and sustaining an industry.
Our STEM program is really growing right now, so robotics gives us a lot of opportunity to partner with local people as well. We have things like job interview contests, and we work with HR departments to do mock interviews.
We’re always trying to connect with people throughout the site to highlight their careers and passions for different subject matters that pertain to our young people.
HOUMA, La. — For nearly 50 years, James Blanchard has made his living in the Gulf of Mexico, pulling shrimp from the sea.
It’s all he ever wanted to do, since he was around 12 years old and accompanied his father, a mailman and part-time shrimper, as he spent weekends trawling the marshy waters off Louisiana. Blanchard loved the adventure and splendid isolation.
He made a good living, even as the industry collapsed around him. He and his wife, Cheri, bought a comfortable home in a tidy subdivision here in the heart of Bayou Country. They helped put three kids through college.
But eventually Blanchard began to contemplate his forced retirement, selling his 63-foot boat and hanging up his wall of big green fishing nets once he turns 65 in February.
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“The amount of shrimp was not a problem,” said Blanchard, a fourth-generation shrimper who routinely hauls in north of 30,000 flash-frozen pounds on a two-week trip. “It’s making a profit, because the prices were so low.”
Then came President Trump, his tariffs and famously itchy trigger finger.
Blanchard is a lifelong Republican, but wasn’t initially a big Trump fan.
In April, Trump slapped a 10% fee on shrimp imports, which grew to 50% for India, America’s largest overseas source of shrimp. Further levies were imposed on Ecuador, Vietnam and Indonesia, which are other major U.S. suppliers.
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Views of the 47th president, from the ground up
Tariffs may slow economic growth, discombobulate markets and boost inflation. Trump’s single-handed approach to tax-and-trade policy has landed him before the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule by summer on a major test case of presidential power.
Blanchard snacks on a bag of dried shrimp.
But for Blanchard, those tariffs have been a lifeline. He’s seen a significant uptick in prices, from as low as 87 cents a pound for wild-caught shrimp to $1.50 or more. That’s nowhere near the $4.50 a pound, adjusted for inflation, that U.S shrimpers earned back in the roaring 1980s, when shrimp was less common in home kitchens and something of a luxury item.
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It’s enough, however, for Blanchard to shelve his retirement plans and for that — and Trump — he’s appreciative.
“Writing all the bills in the world is great,” he said of efforts by congressional lawmakers to prop up the country’s dwindling shrimp fishermen. “But it don’t get nothing done.”
Trump, Blanchard said, has delivered.
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Shrimp is America’s most popular seafood, but that hasn’t buoyed the U.S. shrimp industry.
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Wild-caught domestic shrimp make up less than 10% of the market. It’s not a matter of quality, or overfishing. A flood of imports — farmed on a mass scale, lightly regulated by developing countries and thus cheaper to produce — has decimated the market for American shrimpers.
In the Gulf and South Atlantic, warm water shrimp landings — the term the industry uses — had an average annual value of more than $460 million between 1975 and 2022, according to the Southern Shrimp Alliance, a trade group. (Those numbers are not adjusted for inflation.)
A boat moves up a canal in Chauvin, La.
Over the last two years, the value of the commercial shrimp fishery has fallen to $269 million in 2023 and $256 million in 2024.
As the country’s leading shrimp producer, Louisiana has been particularly hard hit. “It’s getting to the point that we are on our knees,” Acy Cooper, president of the Louisiana Shrimp Assn., recently told New Orleans television station WVUE.
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In the 1980s, there were more than 6,000 licensed shrimpers working in Louisiana. Today, there are fewer than 1,500.
Blanchard can see the ripple effects in Houma — in the shuttered businesses, the depleted job market and the high incidence of drug overdoses.
Latrevien Moultrie, 14, fishes in Houma, La.
“It’s affected everybody,” he said. “It’s not only the boats, the infrastructure, the packing plants. It’s the hardware stores. The fuel docks. The grocery stores.”
Two of the Blanchardses’ three children have moved away, seeking opportunity elsewhere. One daughter is a university law professor. Their son works in logistics for a trucking company in Georgia. Their other daughter, who lives near the couple, applies her advanced degree in school psychology as a stay-at-home mother of five.
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(Cheri Blanchard, 64 and retired from the state labor department, keeps the books for her husband.)
It turns out the federal government is at least partly responsible for the shrinking of the domestic shrimp industry. In recent years, U.S. taxpayers have subsidized overseas shrimp farming to the tune of at least $195 million in development aid.
Seated at their dining room table, near a Christmas tree and other remnants of the holidays, Blanchard read from a set of scribbled notes — a Bible close at hand — as he and his wife decried the lax safety standards, labor abuses and environmental degradation associated with overseas shrimp farming.
James Blanchard and his wife, Cheri, like Trump’s policies. His personality is another thing.
The fact their taxes help support those practices is particularly galling.
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“A slap in the face,” Blanchard called it.
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Donald Trump grew slowly on the Blanchards.
The two are lifelong Republicans, but they voted for Trump in 2016 only because they considered him less bad than Hillary Clinton.
Once he took office, they were pleasantly surprised.
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They had more money in their pockets. Inflation wasn’t an issue. Washington seemed less heavy-handed and intrusive. By the time Trump ran for reelection, the couple were fully on board and they happily voted for him again in 2024.
Republican National Committee reading material sits on the counter of James Blanchard’s kitchen.
Still, there are things that irk Blanchard. He doesn’t much care for Trump’s brash persona and can’t stand all the childish name-calling. For a long time, he couldn’t bear listening to Trump’s speeches.
“You didn’t ever really listen to many of Obama’s speeches,” Cheri interjected, and James allowed as how that was true.
“I liked his personality,” Blanchard said of the former Democratic president. “I liked his character. But I didn’t like his policies.”
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It’s the opposite with Trump.
Unlike most politicians, Blanchard said, when Trump says he’ll do something he generally follows through.
Such as tightening border security.
“I have no issue at all with immigrants,” he said, as his wife nodded alongside. “I have an issue with illegal immigrants.” (She echoed Trump in blaming Renee Good for her death last week at the hands of an ICE agent.)
“I have sympathy for them as families,” Blanchard went on, but crossing the border doesn’t make someone a U.S. citizen. “If I go down the highway 70 miles an hour in that 30-mile-an-hour zone, guess what? I’m getting a ticket. … Or if I get in that car and I’m drinking, guess what? They’re bringing me to jail. So what’s the difference?”
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Between the two there isn’t much — apart from Trump’s “trolling,” as Cheri called it — they find fault with.
Blanchard hailed the lightning-strike capture and arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as another example of Trump doing and meaning exactly what he says.
“When Biden was in office, they had a $25-million bounty on [Maduro’s] head,” Blanchard said. “But apparently it was done knowing that it was never going to be enforced.”
More empty talk, he suggested.
Just like all those years of unfulfilled promises from politicians vowing to rein in foreign competition and revive America’s suffering shrimping industry.
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James Blanchard aboard his boat, which he docks in Bayou Little Caillou.
Trump and his tariffs have given Blanchard back his livelihood and for that alone he’s grateful.
There’s maintenance and repair work to be done on his boat — named Waymaker, to honor the Lord — before Blanchard musters his two-man crew and sets out from Bayou Little Caillou.
