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recommended 1-2 pg/ml level in blood samples as recommended by the AQHA.
“There was a medication committee meet- ing on Feb. 24, and the clenbuterol issue, in some form, will probably be on the agenda
for the March 20 meeting of the Oklahoma Horse Racing,” said Debbie Schauf, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Quarter Horse Racing Association.
According to OHRC Executive Director Constantin Rieger, the medication committee could potentially meet again prior to March 20 to further discuss clenbuterol due to the impor- tance and depth of the issue. If the medication committee decides to recommend lowering the clenbuterol thresholds, those recommendations could be presented at the March 20 meeting.
Similar to action taken in Oklahoma,
the Texas Quarter Horse Association’s
Racing Committee discussed clenbuterol at their board meeting on Feb. 11 in Austin. According to TQHA Race Director Rob Werstler, the TQHA Racing Committee voted unanimously to support the AQHA’s pro- posal, citing a desire to mirror Oklahoma and Louisiana and maintain consistency through- out the region’s racing jurisdictions.
Clenbuterol was again discussed at the Texas Racing Commission’s Safety and Medication Working Group meeting on March 6 at Sam Houston Race Park. Werstler was in attendance, as were several prominent industry leaders.
“Dr. John Tuttle, a veterinarian who works for Boehringer Ingelheim, which manufactures Ventipulmin Syrup, was there and gave us his take on the situation. Trey Buck was on via teleconference. Ken Peck, who is director of the Texas Diagnostic
Lab and does all of our testing, was there. And, of course, we had representatives from the Texas Thoroughbred Association, the Texas Quarter Horse Association, the Texas Horsemen’s Partnership, and several trainers. It was a good group of people,” Werstler related. “We discussed the AQHA’s recom- mendation and threshold levels, and every- body had the opportunity to put in their two cents worth. The main thing that came out of the meeting is there isn’t enough scientific information to go forward just yet. It’s a very complicated issue.”
With the exception of New Mexico, many state racing commissions face pressure from Thoroughbred veterinarians and horsemen to leave clenbuterol alone, which can complicate the issue. Additionally, lowering threshold levels for clenbuterol could require large out-of- pocket expenditures to increase the sensitivity of testing equipment and procedures. Without solid scientific research to back up AQHA’s lower threshold recommendations, many horsemen and legislatures don’t see the need to spend the money to test at lower levels.
Buck indicated he is scheduled to give a
presentation on clenbuterol at the Louisiana Quarter Horse Breeders Association annual meeting on March 17 in Lafayette, and he is also planning on attending the Louisiana Racing Commission’s meeting in late April.
“With the Bute issue or the Lasix issue, there are horsemen on both sides, and probably more on the side to leave things as they are rather than getting rid of it or changing thresh- old levels,” said Buck. “But you don’t have that on the clenbuterol issue. The big thing with clenbuterol is there has pretty much been a national outcry from our horsemen. From one side of the nation to the other, top to bottom, it’s just been a big deal where everyone has said we have to get rid of it.”
And so the clenbuterol changes, and the clenbuterol debate, continues.
THE SCIENCE OF CLENBUTEROL
Clenbuterol is a beta-2 agonist licensed for veterinary use as a bronchodilator.
It is marketed under the trade name Ventipulmin Syrup, by Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. Ventipulmin
is the only FDA-approved drug to treat respiratory disease due to bronchospasm in horses.
One of the side effects of clenbuterol use is increased muscle mass, and follow- ing horse racing’s ban of anabolic steroids in 2008, many horsemen turned to clen- buterol for its steroid-life effects.
“In discussions with the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium,
the vets and the labs all knew that beta
2 agonists have a steroid-like quality and will have a muscle building effect for horses, but they just didn’t think it would be used to the extreme that is has been,” said Buck. “I don’t think the industry is ever going to go back and use anabolic steroids again, but the problem becomes how we address this, because it does have this anabolic effect.”
Anecdotally, breeders are already noticing negative effects of clenbuterol
on breeding stallions and mares. Scientifically, veterinarians have docu- mented the following side effects in horses given doses of clenbuterol in excess of normally prescribed, therapeutic
levels: sustained tachycardia (accelerated heartrate), muscle tremors, hypergly- cemia (high blood sugar), and cardiac and skeletal muscle necrosis (death). In addition, horses have been documented as dying from complications of clenbuterol overdose including laminitis, acute renal failure, rhabdomyolysis (the rapid break- down of damaged skeletal muscle tissue), and cardiomyopathy (deterioration of the function of the heart muscle).
AQHA Executive Director of Racing Trey Buck has been meeting with several state associations to discuss clenbuterol thresholds.
Feb. 23 meeting of the New Mexico Racing Commission (NMRC). During that meeting, the Commission voted to suspend for a period of 12 months the use of clenbuterol at all New Mexico racetracks, effective April 20, the first day of racing at SunRay Park in Farmington. In doing so, New Mexico becomes the first state to impose limitations on clenbuterol use in Thoroughbreds as well as Quarter Horses.
“This is a great step forward for racing
in New Mexico and throughout the United States,” said Ruidoso Downs General Manager Shaun Hubbard in a Feb. 24 press release. “This is a big step to enhance the integrity of racing and is, simply, doing what is best for the horse.”
“In New Mexcio, I think there were two things instrumental in getting it done,” said Buck. “One was what the Hubbards—R.D. and Shaun—did in getting all the racetracks in line to accept it. And the other is that there were horsemen in the room that day— Thoroughbred horsemen—that stood up and said, ‘we think this needs to happen for everybody.’ Those were the two things that were very instrumental in getting it done in New Mexico.”
The day after the NMRC voted to sus- pend clenbuterol use, the Oklahoma Horse Racing Commission’s Ad Hoc Committee on Medication met and discussed clenbuterol use and the recommendations of the Oklahoma Quarter Horse Racing Association (OQHRA). At their February board meeting, the OQHRA voted to send a letter to the Oklahoma Horse Racing Commission (OHRC), requesting the issue of threshold levels for Quarter Horse, Paint and Appaloosa racing in Oklahoma be placed on the agenda for the OHRC March meeting, and further that the OHRC adopt the
SPEEDHORSE, March 16, 2012 35
Courtesy aQha