Page 98 - 23 November 2012

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Contaminated Feed
I would like to share my story with Speedhorse readers in the hopes that it might help someone else in a similar situation.
In July 2012 I was at my barn when I was approached by racetrack security stating they had some bad news. I had a bad
test for ractopamine. I was in shock, I had never even heard of ractopamine. In my 25 years of being in the racehorse business
I have never received a positive test. I was devastated, my first thought was how am I going to prove I’m innocent and there’s this piece of paper saying I’m not?
I soon found out another trainer had received a bad test for ractopamine as well, and we both used the same sweet feed. I started to look on the Internet and visit my feed company and found out where they receive their feed from. The mill makes a
pig finisher there as well. I phoned the feed mill and asked if they were the main distributors for the feed company in Grande Prairie (Alberta), they said they were. I asked if they produced a certain
pig finisher and they said yes. But when I asked about ractopamine, I was told they would get back to me. I phoned again a few days later and was rather rudely asked to gather information—proof I bought this grain, batch numbers, dates, etc. So I did and faxed
it to the mill. In the meantime, I received another positive test for ractopamine—each is a $4,000 fine and a six-month suspension. I found out in Canada the feed mills have to probe their feed
and keep samples of each batch made for a certain period of time. I had some grain leftover and sent it away to be tested, it was positive for ractopamine. I also contacted our CFIA. They came and took some samples and sent it off to their lab, and also went to the
feed mill and did their own investigation and took samples of the feed. While all of this was going on, I received a third positive for ractopamine. In all, it took approximately a month. Finally, the vice-president of the feed mill phoned me and informed me when they did an internal test, they found ractopamine in their feed. They contacted the Horse Racing Commission, as by this time they were also doing an investigation. All three of my rulings were dismissed.
was not going to go down without a fight. I am a proud person and would not purposely hurt my horses. It’s amazing to me how people look at you differently when something like this happens. But it all ended well. We are now working with the feed company with respect to compensation for the three horses that lost all their purse money as well as one that was the second-fastest qualifier to a stakes race that she never got to run in because of a mistake that was out of my control. Contamination does happen, but you need to do the groundwork to prove it. It was a long, tiring battle, but it was worth it.
Angelle Carter British Columbia, Canada
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SPEEDHORSE, November 23, 2012