Medication and Drugs in Race Horses

I’ve been doing my blog for a little over a year now. When I originally started the blog I thought I would mostly focus on selections, handicapping and betting articles, and opinions, of which I have plenty, some good, some not so good.

One of those opinion pieces was about Doug O’Neill’s conviction for oxazepam in NY (halveyonhorseracing.com/?p=517). It was my opinion then, and it is still my opinion that O’Neill was convicted because the absolute insurers rule presumes guilt when a horse tests positive for a banned substance. The likelihood that he had anything to do with giving the horse oxazepam was very small. On the other hand, the likelihood that it is was environmental contamination that caused the positive is very high.

In this case and in other cases I’ve investigated, the competence of the adjudicating bodies is at the very least suspect. 

I had no idea that my opinion piece would generate the response it did, especially within the horsemen’s community. Trainer inquiries became a regular occurrence for me, and  a number of them told me that no one pushes back when trainers are cited for violations. An avocation was born.

Racing Commissions are set up as the enforcement, adjudicatory, and appeals branches for horseracing. It is a system that no industry interested in the full story would have designed. It is a system that is ripe for long time Executive Directors of racing commissions to exercise their power harshly and abusively. It is a system that does not fully investigate violations, instead relying on a rule that absolves commissions of all need to dig for the truth. It is a system that uses its power to set standards designed to ban good, legal therapeutic drugs because commissions can get away with it.

I’ve taken a lot of criticism for my stories. I’ve been accused of being pro-drug by some fairly heavy hitters, including Barry Irwin from Team Valor. I have tried to be clear that I firmly believe real performance enhancing drugs should be punished harshly, but that the unchecked power exhibited by the Racing Commissions is at least as serious an issue.

I’ve also gone on record that therapeutic medications are in a different category than performance enhancing drugs, and should be dealt with differently. I will not be convinced that suspension, loss of purse and a fine are all three warranted for a picogram overage of drugs like phenylbutazone or banamine.

I’ve written about the following trainer violations:

  • Doug O’Neill for oxazepam in NY. Almost certainly an environmental contamination case.
  • Ferris Allen for Stanozolol in MD. This was a case where absurd zero tolerance standards resulted in a picogram positive for a long-time and successfully used therapeutic medication in a horse that had a level that could not have had any real impact on performance.
  • Bill Brashears for Banamine in CO. This was a case where the commission adopted a standard that essentially rendered use of the drug moot for therapeutic purposes.
  • Chris Grove for Nikethamide in WV. This was a case where the investigation was incompetent, the commission essentially agreed that Grove had nothing to do with the positive, but he was given days and a fine anyway.
  • Kellyn Gorder for metamphetamine in KY. This was also almost certainly a case of environmental contamination.

These are egregious cases where commissions showed poor judgement, bad investigatory practices, and unfair punishments. It’s not 100% of the cases, but ask each of these trainers if the fact that commissions get it right most of the time is enough to make up for their pain.

As it turns out, I was likely right about Kellyn Gorder’s violation. Somebody who had recently used meth had contact with the horses that tested positive.

Recently, esteemed midwestern trainer McLean Robertson was convicted of a methamphetamine violation. He was handed a 90 day suspension and fined $2,000. This is in opposition to Gorder’s year suspension imposed by Kentucky.

So one obvious issue is that punishments in jurisdictions can vary widely for the same violation. Gorder’s violation was for 48 picograms, Robertson’s for 74 picograms. Both are considered de minimis when it comes to any performance enhancing effect, and almost any respectable pharmacologist will tell you that the probability was for an environmental contamination. Robertson is so well respected that even Canterbury Park threw their support behind him.

Canterbury Park supports and funds drug testing as a deterrent to the use of performance-enhancing substances in horse racing,” track officials said in a July 26 statement. “However, Canterbury Park management does not believe Mr. Robertson, an upstanding and respected member of Canterbury Park’s racing program for many years, administered a performance-enhancing or prohibited substance to the horse referenced in this case but is a victim of environmental contamination.”

“We realize the board of stewards, under direction of the Minnesota Racing Commission, was in a difficult position in this matter based on zero-tolerance and trainer responsibility rules. The integrity of the sport is of utmost importance, but scientific advances in drug testing have made zero-tolerance rules for contaminants impractical.”

“When the stewards’ ruling is appealed to the MRC, we hope they take into consideration the mitigating circumstances in this case.”

Unfortunately, the commissions and their imperial executive directors have painted themselves into a corner. Even if you believe Gorder and Robertson were the victims of environmental contamination, by what part of racing rules do they get to excuse them from punishment?  After all, nobody proved anything other than a horse had meth in its system, including environmental contamination, and the absolute insurers rule is, well absolute. And if they do, don’t they set a precedent that causes them far more headaches than convicting them would?

Whether or not ARCI will do something remains to be seen, but at least one member of the drug testing committee has seen the light. Constantin Rieger, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Racing Commission sent this to the Scientific Advisory Committee members:

RCI Scientific Advisory Committee Members, I am a member of the RCI DTSP committee and would like to request that the Advisory Committee consider establishing a contaminant level for the drug Methamphetamine. As you know, Meth has become a popular drug in human use and equine testing may be affected by such use. We have several drugs/compounds which are considered contaminants and I believe Meth could fit into that category. There have been several low level positive confirmations nationally of late and I believe it’s time to give this drug a contaminant distinction. We have a protocol in place that addresses any findings of the drug, although possibly not confirmable (human drug testing), which the lab would report to the Commission. I appreciate your consideration of this matter.

Perhaps they will change the standard to allow for a contamination level, but the question is whether it will be too late to help Robertson and Gorder. Still, I’d like to think my practice has helped stimulate some hard thinking on the part of horsemen and racing commissions when it comes to some violations.