TUCSON, Ariz. - The first speaker on a busy morning at the 29th annual Symposium on Racing opened with a quote from Shakespeare.

"O, how full of briars is this working-day world," said Lonny Powell, president and chief executive of Racing Commissioners International, a Kentucky-based group that represents racing commissions in North America.

The words aptly kicked off a session entitled "National Issues and Perspectives," which was followed by "Integrity of Technology."

Oh, how full of briars is this horse racing world, leaders and devotees of which gather yearly at this conference presented by the University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program.

As Powell rattled off four major problems facing racing, he emphasized that every problem presents an opportunity. And in the spirit of the symposium, which attracts people who make their livings in the business and, therefore, want it to succeed, Powell urged racing's factions to pull together to address what he called a "closet of issues in terrible need of a good scrubbing."

He described the Breeders' Cup Pick Six betting scandal as a "nightmare ... like undergoing gut surgery with a dull blade without anesthesia. This may be the greatest single challenge ... our industry has ever faced."

The integrity of wagering - the industry's bedrock - was shaken when three ex-fraternity brothers, one a computer expert with a totalizator company, conspired to change bets that had been made. If racing officials hadn't immediately suspected fraud and investigated, the winning tickets would have returned more than $3 million.

Representatives of three totalizator companies pulled out of scheduled appearances yesterday on the advice of lawyers. But Greg Avioli, deputy commissioner and chief executive of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, said the industry has responded with "unprecedented cooperation" in working together to upgrade technology and restore bettor confidence.

"We think this is actually a positive development," Avioli said. "The reality is, our systems need to be improved, and they can be improved."

Steven W. Teppler, CEO of the security firm TimeCertain, said racing found itself in the same unenviable position as industries such as banking and drug manufacturing that discovered that "computer information is uniquely susceptible to manipulation."

Teppler said that racing can adopt technology to close loopholes and ensure betting security but that the sport may never be able to unearth betting scams that might have preceded the Pick Six scandal.

"The issue is the devil you don't know at this point," Teppler said.

In addition to betting integrity, Powell, the Racing Commissioners executive, listed three other problems racing must solve: drugs, insurance and jockeys' weight.

He gave credence to the growing movement within the industry to raise the weights for jockeys. Racing cannot hope to become a mainstream sport, he said, when it forces some of its star athletes to nearly starve themselves, to spend hours in the "hot box" sweating off pounds, to take pills to lose weight and to throw up intentionally after eating.

"It's ugly, embarrassing, shameful and sometimes harmful," Powell said. Eliminating the need for it, he said, is "a matter of safety, a matter of humanity and a matter of doing what's right."

He said the industry also needs to find a way of providing workers' compensation for backstretch workers and insurance for jockeys and exercise riders.

Finally, he described the lack of a uniform drug policy and adequate testing procedures as "one of the most troublesome and confidence-eroding issues of our sport."

Scot Waterman, executive director of the NTRA Integrity and Drug Testing Task Force, said the industry representatives who banded together a year ago to confront the problem of administering illegal, performance-affecting drugs to horses had made substantial progress - but needed, in the year ahead, to make more.

Waterman promised continued work on developing uniform drug policies, testing methods and disciplinary procedures for all states, as well as additional research into undetectable drugs being given to horses and the development of techniques for identifying them in post-race testing.