Page 3 - 8 August 2012

OWNERS
What can owners do when it comes to drugs?
I applaud those Thoroughbred owners who stepped up to the plate to take responsibility for their horses.
by Stacy Pigott
Lately, we’ve been getting a lot of calls from horse- men concerned about the state of our industry. Most of the calls center around the use of illegal
medications such as dermorphin, ractopamine and zilpaterol. Doping. “You should do something,” they say. And we do; we strive to present factual informa- tive on the events happening in American Quarter Horse racing. The conversations continue: “They should do something about illegal drugs!”
You should do something. They should do some- thing. Trainers and veterinarians are the ones getting blamed for giving racehorses illegal drugs. Racing commissions are the ones getting blamed for being too lenient and making it too easy for trainers and veteri- narians to dope their horses and get away with it.
So when I saw a press release from the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, stating that 39 owners had pledged to race their 2-year- olds free of Salix this year, my spirits lifted. While Salix is a well-regulated therapeutic medication and not an illegal drug in horse racing, the action is still a marked change from the finger pointing we normally see. Rather than wait for trainers, veterinarians and racing commissions to fix what they foresee as a serious prob- lem, a forward-thinking group of owners quit saying “you” and “they” and decided to do something.
Now I know what you’re thinking...how are own- ers going to change anything? It’s the trainer and the vet that manage and treat the horse. What does an owner have to do with it?
In my opinion, an owner has a lot to do with it.
I could even go out on a limb and blame owners for the proliferation of illegal drugs in the first place. “Joe Owner” wants to win races, so he sends his horses to “Mr. Clean Trainer.” Everything goes smoothly until “Mr. Dirty Trainer” comes along. Pretty soon, Mr. Dirty Trainer’s horses are winning races and beating Joe Owner’s horses. Joe Owner wants to win so what does he do? He switches trainers from Mr. Clean Trainer to Mr. Dirty Trainer. Joe Owner has just sup- ported the use of illegal drugs.
The downside of that argument is, of course, that most owners don’t know enough about what goes on at their trainer’s barn to know if their horse is being drugged or not. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard an owner say “Well MY trainer would NEVER give a horse (insert illegal drug name here),” only to have that same trainer end up with a positive test for that same drug. I’ve seen owners confidently state
that their horses would NEVER get a positive test
for a certain drug, because they specifically told
their trainer NOT to use that drug...only to have that owner’s horse test positive for the said drug. No, maybe the owners don’t know. And there is also that very definite and unambiguous rule about trainer responsibility. But... I’ve also heard trainers relate sto- ries of owners specifically telling them to use certain illegal drugs to keep their horse competitive.
So what is the truth? I am sure it lies somewhere in between. Some owners are probably totally unaware of what goes on in their trainer’s barn; other owners probably know every single thing that goes in their horse’s feed tub. There are owners who visit their horses every day, and owners who only ever watch their horse race on TV. But the bottom line is we cannot continue to point fingers and blame trainers, veterinarians and racing commissions to the complete exclusion of the people who pay the bills—owners.
At an open AQHA committee meeting last year, there was a very discussion about the potential ben- efits and downfalls of holding owners...and horses... accountable for bad tests, rather than continuing to punish only the trainers. Some of the ideas being considered ranged from suspending an owner’s AQHA membership to pulling a horse’s papers. Many were of the opinion that while the trainer physically takes care of the horse, the trainer is employed by the owner, who should take some responsibility for his property (the horse) and his employee (the trainer), especially in the case of repeat offenders when there can be no doubt that the owner is well aware of the repeated drug violations.
Illegal drugs are a serious problem for horse rac- ing. Continuing to focus on trainers, veterinarians and racing commissions as the only way to fix the problem has not worked in the past, and ignores the majority of people in our industry—owners. It will take all of us to solve this problem, and together, WE must find a solution.
I applaud those Thoroughbred owners who stepped up to the plate to take responsibility for their horses. They didn’t wait for “you” or “they” to do something, they did it themselves.
So the next time you find yourself saying, “You should do something about this,” or “They should do something about this,” stop and ask yourself, what can I do about this? And then, as the Nike slogan says, Just do it.
SPEEDHORSE, August 3, 2012 3
UNDER WRAPS