Page 115 - Speedhorse March 2019

“One of the things that keeps me up at night is therapeutic overages, particularly in these races that are worth millions of dollars.”
identifications is unquestionably the change in laboratory. When I look at a spike of positives, one of the things I look for is if you have inde- pendent trainers showing the same positive in the same location at the same time, it’s clearly not the trainers. It’s something else.”
For its part, NMRC executive director Izzy Trejo points out the overall percentage of tests showing positives for corticosteroids in 2017 was 2.5 percent, and in 2018 it dropped to 1.4 percent. Of course, Trejo said, the commission also tested a lot more samples in 2018 than it had in 2017, which could help explain the change.
“The commission has been advised by legal counsel to proceed with business as usual in adjudicating the cases and penalizing them ac- cording to ARCI recommended penalties, which we are bound to do by statute,” said Trejo.
All this leaves the commission between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, the recent rash of positives are most certainly positive. On the other, horsemen and veterinarians feel like the playing field shifted under them without any warning, as many of them say they did not change their programs but began getting posi- tives after the change in labs.
“It had a tremendous effect on our prac- tice,” said Dr. Clayton McCook, racetrack
practitioner from Equine Sports Medicine and Surgery. “One of the things that keeps me up at night is therapeutic overages, particularly in these races that are worth millions of dollars ... I am exceptionally careful in my practice. We work very hard to maintain a level of care.
“We started to hear about the overages, particularly with betamethosane and dexa- methasone. There was almost a panic on the backstretch. There was certainly a panic within me because I have some very successful clients that spend a lot of time in the test barn. Typi- cally when they win a big race, I don’t sleep
for a couple of weeks, even though I know I’ve done everything by the book.”
At the NMHA public meeting, McCook also alleged the administration guidelines he and his practice had been using were in line with, or even backed out slightly, from the RMTC withdrawal guidelines. He also said he was not provided with information regard- ing blood versus urine testing at UC-Davis or Industrial. Since the spike in positives, he has discontinued the use of dexamethasone, not wanting to risk a positive.
McCook said some of his clients had gotten corticosteroid positives in the first 73 days of the new contract. Of those, he said there were horses who had not been treated with cortico-
steroids within 72 hours of race time, or indeed for months before their races. He dismissed suggestions those trainers may have given the drugs themselves.
A number of trainers were present at the NMHA meeting discussing corticosteroids. Those who spoke expressed frustration and confusion to the experts and commissioners present, several of them questioning whether the positives from this spike should be allowed to stand.
Longtime New Mexico owner/breeder Tom McKenna, chimed in.
“It looks to me like the onus is on the rac- ing commission,” he said. “It takes a big man to admit a mistake and they have obviously made a mistake in the hasty decision they made. They need to walk it back. We all know where we start from now. We’re not trying to run faster, we’re trying to run safer and we’re being penalized for it.”
Since that initial spike of corticosteroid positives in the first 73 days of the drug test- ing contract, the NMRC has issued 25 more rulings to trainers for corticosteroid overages through early Feb. 2019.
Originally published at PaulickReport.com. Reprinted with permission, Copyright © 2019 Blenheim Publishing LLC.
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