JC / Railbird

Drugs in Racing

No Trace

When Kentucky mandated last year that state veterinarians give pre-race Lasix shots, in place of private vets, the results were eye-opening, reports Ryan Goldberg in the final installment of TDN’s drugs in racing series (PDF):

Besides the volume of Lasix [which declined], murkier drugs largely disappeared from post-race tests. Scollay said she had seen evidence that a drug called GABA, short for gamma-aminobutyric acid, was commonplace in Kentucky. The amino acid, which is present in the supplement “Carolina Gold,” is endogenous to horses as well as humans — it’s the predominant receptor blocker in the central nervous system. It has a pain-mitigating and calming effect that can conserve a horse’s energy prior to a race. However, because it’s naturally occurring and leaves a horse’s system within three to four hours, finding suspicious levels in post-race tests is difficult.

Its use in Kentucky was apparently curtailed once regulatory vets came in. The “noise” in post-race samples all but departed. Lasix is administered within four hours of a race; private vets were apparently giving GABA at the same time. There was no trace.

Wow. I wonder if the same thing happened in New York after the NYRA detention barn — in which horses were monitored for six hours before a race and only state vets could administer Lasix — opened in 2005, and if the concentration of Lasix in the blood, as well as the presence of other drugs or supplements in test samples, rebounded after it closed in 2010?

Posted in Racing on June 24, 2013 / Tagged Drugs in Racing, GABA, Kentucky, Lasix, Medications, New York, Reform, Regulations

Tarnished Encke

The British Horseracing Authority released on Monday the results of tests done on all Godolphin-owned racehorses based in Newmarket, revealing that seven additional horses trained by the now-suspended Mahmood al Zarooni turned up positive for steroids — including the 2012 St. Leger winner Encke. That name atop the list was explosive, immediately raising the question of whether Camelot, second in the St. Leger, lost the Triple Crown to a horse who may have been treated with banned substances. Encke tested clean before and after the race last September, but the question will linger, writes Greg Wood:

And, thanks to the poisonous nature of anabolic steroids, which leave suspicions lingering when all traces of the drug have gone, it is a question that will probably never have an answer.

For Paul Hayward, Encke’s positive:

is a disaster all by itself. It casts doubt on a whole season of Flat racing and requires an asterisk to be placed next to the final Classic of 2012.

Encke will not be disqualified, said the BHA. “There is absolutely no evidence at all that [he] was gaining benefit from prohibited substances in the St Leger.”

It’s a determination that must be accepted, unless new details emerge about Zarooni’s operation at Moulton Paddocks (the investigation is ongoing).

American racing fans know the uncertainty, even if the situations are different: Big Brown’s 2008 run for the Triple Crown, and his baffling performance in the Belmont Stakes, was also clouded by the issue of (then legal) steroids.

Posted in Racing on May 21, 2013 / Tagged BHA, Britain, Camelot, Drugs in Racing, Encke, Godolphin, International, Steroids, Triple Crown

Keep ‘Em Going

Part two of a six-part series on drugs in racing by Ryan Goldberg for the TDN considers the current, not-so-pretty situation (PDF):

It seems a trainer would have to be crazy to use illegal drugs when so many legal ones are at his disposal. Before the days of pharmacological drugs, the goal was to “hop ‘em or stop ‘em,” but what the picture looks like now is an everyday practice of using drugs to manage pain and other complications to get a horse to post. Since the majority of horses race for tags, it makes sense. “The claiming game does not protect the horse,” Scollay says. “It’s like day- trading on the stock market.”

The respiratory drug clenbuterol, its anabolic properties, and the widely differing state-by-state guidelines for its use get particular attention; Massachusetts is among the states listed in Goldberg’s piece as offering no guidelines. That was the case through the 2012 Suffolk Downs meet — since then, though, Massachusetts has joined seven other states in adopting the Mid-Atlantic Uniform Medication Program, which allows for 24 therapeutic drugs and sets guidelines for their use, and the Massachusetts Gaming Commission began the process of incorporating the new rules in January 2013 (PDF). Under the new guidelines, clenbuterol will no longer be permitted within 14 days of racing. Corticosteroids won’t be allowed within seven days.

Posted in Racing on May 10, 2013 / Tagged Clenbuterol, Drugs in Racing, Equine Health, Massachusetts, Regulations, Suffolk Downs, TDN