In July of this year Peter Sacopulos presented at the National Conference of the Horsemen’s Benevolent Protection Association held at Prairie Meadows Racetrack. Mr. Sacopulos participated in the panel discussion, “HISA: Status Report On Where We Are Now”. Pete is national counsel for the North American Association of Racetrack Veterinarians and presented argument on behalf of NAARV as Amicus Curiae, in the first federal hearing in support of the National HPBA’s constitutional challenge to HISA. In addition, this week he is filing, on behalf of NAARV, an Amicus Curiae brief in support of the National HBPA’s constitutional challenge with the Supreme Court of the United States.
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The conference came right as the National HBPA was urging horsemen to send comments to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in support of the HBPA’s petition requesting implementation of no-effect testing thresholds for foreign substances that can be inadvertently transferred to—and linger in—a racehorse. (More than 1,100 horsemen and those interested in the industry sent comments to the FTC by the deadline. Thank you to all who submitted comments.)
The goal is to pattern horse racing testing after human testing, eliminating minuscule findings that have no impact on a horse’s performance. When called as a rules violation, those findings make innocent horsemen look like cheaters, unjustly destroying reputations and careers.
Dr. Clara Fenger, a veterinarian and one of the nation’s top researchers on environmental transfer and contamination in racehorses, used the cocaine sharks to illustrate the prevalence of environmental contamination in today’s world, driving home how testing has sprinted past today’s drug and medication policies. Connecting the relevance of sharks to Iowa and other racing jurisdictions, Fenger cited the Horseracing Integrity and
Safety Authority (HISA) enabling legislation that states that HISA-covered horses “should compete only when they are free from the influence of medications.”
Fenger’s point is that testing many substances to the limit of detection— meaning that if the lab can find it, it’s a violation, no matter how tiny the amount, even if it doesn’t impact a horse’s performance—actually goes against the federal law that set up the HISA corporation. She said HISA has justified not having more threshold levels by saying that certain substances have no business being in a racehorse at any level.
“Those certain substances have no business in a shark at any level either,” Fenger said.
Also on the panel were Dr. Thomas Tobin, the world-renowned researcher and pioneer in equine testing, and Dr. Rob Holland, another equine practitioner who globally consults on infectious diseases. They were joined by trainer Ron Moquett, who shared his own expensive story on environmental transfer.
All four made the case that racing must adopt no-effect thresholds in racehorse testing for substances that are readily present in the environment. Such policy requires science-based testing levels, below which any trace-level findings are disregarded because they have no pharmacological effect on a horse. Tobin, who has worked on determining realistic no-effect thresholds for 30 years, has called them “irrelevant” findings.
The National HBPA and CEO Eric Hamelback have been the leading advocates for no-effect thresholds, saying it is unfair to sanction trainers and penalize their owners when horses are disqualified from purse money for the presence of a tiny amount of a substance they couldn’t have prevented and that made no difference.
Holland said every horse that races could potentially pick up trace levels of a prohibited substance from 20 to 30 different and routine contact points. Those might include contact with not just the trainer or groom but a van driver, a horse drinking out of another horse’s water bucket in the test barn, the prior horse in that stall in the receiving barn, pony riders, assistant starters, outriders, the test- barn employee known as the “pee-catcher,” veterinarians and many others.
Holland said as part of an investigation into the risks of environmental contamination, they swabbed 12 stalls at a track that has a large yearling
sale and all 12 tested for dexamethasone and acepromazine, which are not allowed to be in a horse’s system for a race. He said one of the swabs was high enough that it would have triggered an adverse finding in a racehorse. Even with thorough cleaning, he said the honeycomb design of the stall floor mats made it impossible to eliminate all the dirt.
“That stall should be subject to a $25,000 fine and two years where you can’t compete if they treated the racetracks like they treat the trainers,” Moquett joked.
“That’s why we have to explain these things to people,” Holland added. “There are things that are out of your control as a trainer.”
Holland said the diabetes medication metformin, for which the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU)—HISA’s testing and enforcement arm—has called a number of adverse findings, lends itself to environmental transfer. Metformin is given daily to humans in large doses and is excreted in its original form. That’s a problem given a backstretch habit of humans urinating in a stall when a bathroom isn’t handy.
“The fact that 20 to 30 individual contacts could occur, and that’s the No. 3 drug in the world to treat humans, your odds of getting urine environmental transfer are getting higher and higher with metformin,” Holland said. “I give
a lot of tracks credit. They saw there weren’t enough bathrooms, so they put porta potties everywhere. The problem with porta potties is how do you wash your hands?”
Holland and Fenger also are involved in a project with the U.S. Geological Survey testing the water at racetracks.
“Metformin, caffeine, codeine, tramadol—many of these medications at low levels are coming out of your water sources, because they can’t get it out of the treatment plant areas,” Holland said. “We’re building a database for this. If [your horse] came in contact with metformin from an individual but you’re also drinking low levels in your water, that could be enough to get you over the threshold level for a test in a racing situation.”
Moquett, a member of HISA’s Horsemen’s Advisory Group, learned the hard way how easy it can be for a horse to pick up a substance banned for racing.
He was cited in November by HIWU for his horse Speed Bias’ post-test finding for a local anesthetic. Through spending a lot of money and effort, Moquett was ultimately held blameless, though the horse remained disqualified from purse money. What happened is that Moquett had a different horse castrat- ed in a stall nine days earlier, with the veterinarian using the same anesthetic to inject the testicles—all duly reported to HISA—before Speed Bias shipped in to run out of the same stall.
Fortunately for Moquett, the track’s barn video documented the effort the trainer’s crew underwent to strip, clean and sanitize the stall on three separate occasions.
“We’re trying to explain to the people in charge to set levels to where you’re not catching and accusing for things that have no effect on racing,” he said.
Moquett stressed that trainers also must make it clear to employees that “it’s not OK to urinate in the stalls. It’s not OK to take your Red Bull in [the stall] with you. It’s not OK to put your coffee cup in a feed tub.”
Originally written by Horseman’s Journal, Fall 2024
