Page 35 - December 2007 The Game

Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper Outside the Borders Continued......
BEWARE THAT BEDDING!
acid were found in horses considerably after the
usual clearance time, depending according to
the stall cleaning maintenance done.
In the rst experiment, the horses were housed on straw, in stalls which had been cleaned thoroughly beforehand. Soiled straw was removed daily, and new straw added, in the way most of us would muck out
a straw-bedded stall. The meclofenamic acid and its breakdown products in each horse’s urine fell, as expected, for the rst 48 hours after administration. But, startlingly, all six horses showed an increase in meclofenamic acid levels 60 to 144 hours after they had been given the drug. Popot hypothesized that this was
due to the horses eating straw contaminated with the drug that had been excreted in the urine.
In a second experiment, two horses were kept in stalls that were subjected to more vigor- ous cleaning than those used by the rst six horses, though the straw was still only partially changed each day. These horses still showed a second peak of meclofenamic acid in the urine, but it was less marked.
The Game, December 2007 35
Young rider Silvestre de Sousa is now in India
attached to the Mahindra family stable, owners of the very useful Woman on Top. Silvestre formerly a top apprentice in his native Brazil has ridden in Dubai, France, Ireland and England with success and was recommended for India by his UK boss David Nichols
Drug tests – and the ever- present possibility of coming up with a positive test even when you think you’ve done everything by the book -- are much on the mind of everyone in the racing industry these days. So a new study from
the Laboratoires des Courses Hippiques in France is worth considering. According to researcher Dr Marie-Agnès Popot and her colleagues, the risk of a positive test might
in some cases be dramatically reduced by throwing some extra energy into your stable management.
wasn’t the only culprit, ei-
ther. A single horse kept on wood shavings also showed a similar “rebound” in urine concentrations of meclofenamic acid – indicating that the drug can nd its way back into a horse’s system even when the bedding isn’t being eaten.
Some horses have just got that tenacity to make a ght
of it and some don’t. Katchit may only be a little ‘un, but he showed us all at Aintree recently that you’d better be prepared to put the gloves on if you want to mess with him. Giving 14lbs+ to some decent sorts he battled it out to force his superiority on the others, but it remains to be seen how much last season’s runaway Triumph Hurdle winner has improved, when he takes on more experienced open class rivals in the coming months.
Only in horses that had their stalls completely cleaned out and the straw replaced daily did the urine concentrations
of meclofenamic acid fall as expected and remain below the limit of quanti cation (i.e. the level below which the amount of drug could no longer be accurately measured).
The Gold Cup winner and runner up locked horns again, this time at Haydock in the Betfair Chase. Kauto Star improved on his last run and again came out in front with a near foot-perfect display, battling it out with Exotic Dancer over the nal three fences before holding a 1⁄2L advantage at the line.
In a paper recently
published by the Journal of Veterinary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, some drugs which are excreted in urine can be absorbed in stable bedding and, in essence, produce a “rebound” reading in horses long after
they ought to have cleared their systems.
Victory in the Gr1 Japan Cup Dirt over 10f stayed in Japan with a commanding win by the Yutaka Take ridden Vermilion. Eishin Lombard forced a good pace into the straight where Field Rouge moved through to forge clear, but Vermilion was too strong and the son of El Condor Pasa was a convincing 13⁄4Lwinner.
Though the sample size was small in this study, it does seem to indicate that horses might take longer than ex- pected to clear drugs from
It’s a long way to go to be refused a run, but someone cocked up somewhere and European Champion Dylan Thomas stayed rmly on the sidelines. After a disappoint- ing run against Meisho Samson last time, Admire Moon, ridden by Yasunari Iwata, certainly struck back with a vengeance, taking the C$4.8million Japan Cup from fellow nationals Pop Rocks, favourite Meisho Samson and the hard charging young missy, the 3yo Vodka. The winner is now in the hands of Darley Japan and will stand at stud for Sheikh Mohammed and his extended global operation.
Popot administered meclofenamic acid intrave- nously to six stabled horses. The drug, which most of us know as Arquel ®, is a non- steroidal anti-inflammatory for which concentrations in blood and urine fall rapidly after administration. But in the study, traces of meclofenamic
the bloodstream and produce negative urine samples, when they are kept stabled and
their stalls are not completely stripped out. It’s just one more detail to think about in the increasingly complicated world of regulations and drug tests.
Mark Dec 9 in your calendar for racing in Hong Kong. There will be a plethora of world class horses on display. One being the Australian speedster Miss Andretti in the 6f Hong Kong Sprint, but the Ricky Yiu trained 4yo Sacred Kingdom, who up a scintillating display to break the 6f record at Sha Tin after being eased in the nal 50 yds will make sure she doesn’t have things all her own way.
It appeared that straw
Equine Health
By Karen Briggs
Dave Landry Photo
Alcohol Rubs Great for Reducing Disease Transmission
dent’s left hand for bacteriological culture before and after handling each horse, and from each student’s right hand before and after cleaning the hands.
Three hand-cleaning protocols were
assessed: hand-washing under running wa-
ter for 15 seconds, using an antiseptic soap,
and drying with paper towels; applying a
1 cm blob of a rubbing-alcohol-based gel to
the palm of each hand and rubbing around the whole hand till dry (30-60 seconds); and using
an alcohol-and-chlorhexadine lotion in a simi-
lar fashion. Both alcohol-based rubs, as it turned out, produced signi cantly greater reductions in bacterial counts, compared with hand-washing. For horsepeople, that’s encouraging, because running and water and soap can sometimes be scarce in barns, and frequent hand-washing tends to be pretty hard on the
skin anyway. Alcohol gels and lotions are easy, portable, and convenient to use, inexpensive,
and tend to cause a minimum of skin irritation. Make some available in your barn, and put it to good use before and after you handle any sick
or immunologically fragile horse (such as a newborn foal).
With the recent increase in outbreaks
of neurologic EHV, methicillin-resistant Staphylcoccus aureus (MRSA) infections, and salmonella (just to name a few), horsepeople have also had to become more diligent about managing horses in quarantine conditions
and trying to limit the spread of disease. One
of the simplest ways in which viruses and bacteria spread is on the skin of horse han-
dlers (including trainers, grooms, farriers, and veterinarians). That’s why a simple study carried out at the Ontario Veterinary College at Guelph, in cooperation with the Colorado State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine,
is good news: it suggests that alcohol-based “hand sanitizer” products, now widely avail-
able at pharmacies and department stores, are at least as effective as hand-washing with soap, in reducing the number of bacteria on the skin in a barn environment.
did you Know....
That Woodbine based Jockey Patrick Husbands
led all North American jockeys by earnings with $440,272 for the week ending Tuesday, November 6. That week Patrick had 8 wins in 26 starts with his most lucrative win aboard Kesagami in the $250,000 Coronation Futurity on November 4.
British Columbian resident K.K. Sangara was leading North American owner by earnings for the week of October 28 to November 3 with $179,020. He had ve horses to start that week with 2 winners. Financingavailable’s win in the $174,000 Ontario Fashion Stakes on November 3 contributed $112,392 to the week’s total.
did you Know....
That Ontario based breeders Yvonne and Dagmar Schwabe are the breeders of DAAHER,
the winner of the G1 $294,000
Hill ‘n’ Dale Cigar Mile H. at Aqueduct on November 24. The 3 year-old colt by Awesome Again - Irish Cherry, by Irish Open, campaigns
for owner Shadwell Stable
and trainer Kiaran McLaughlin.
Veterinary students from the two colleges carried out physical examinations on horses, which included inspecting the eyes and ears with a flashlight, running the hands all over the body, inspecting the mucous membranes in the mouth, taking rectal temperatures, and picking up the feet. Samples were collected from each stu-
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