Cleveland native wins Emmy for horse-racing investigation

photo Cleveland native Michael Hyland, a reporter with Central Pennsylvania's Fox43 television station, recently received an Emmy for an in-depth investigative series on the drug culture within Pennsylvania's horse-racing industry.

CLEVELAND, Tenn. - Cleveland native Michael Hyland, a reporter with Central Pennsylvania's Fox43 television station, recently received an Emmy for an in-depth investigative series on the drug culture within Pennsylvania's horse-racing industry.

"It all started with a tip," said Hyland of his investigation - titled "The Winning Edge" - that began shortly before federal indictments were announced in November involving horse doping at Penn National Race Course.

Hyland did research and interviews for a little more than three months between his daily news reporting duties, he said.

"We usually have 50 things going on at once, so I would dig into the story whenever I could at work or at home," he said.

He spoke to professionals in the horse-racing industry and to lawmakers, some of whom said the pervasive drug culture is endangering the horses and killing the industry itself. Other sources said there were no problems.

In online forums he saw posts where people would or would not bet on a horse based on whether it was known for going to the track with performance-enhancing drugs, Hyland said.

Some forum posters expressed favor for doped horses, he said.

Hyland said he kept an objective perspective on the story, but he was disturbed by some attitudes that it was all right to dope horses to enhance performance since it was pervasive in every professional sport.

"Well, baseball players choose to use drugs; horses don't," he said.

Hyland's mother, Marci Hyland, said she could not be more proud of her son's achievement.

Even when he was in Cleveland Middle School, he knew he wanted to become a television reporter, his mother said.

"His big interests were journalism and political science," she said.

After graduating from Notre Dame High School in Chattanooga, his college and work pursuits have been dedicated to broadcast news, Hyland said.

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