Quote from AAEP white paper: “Management of medication violations by racing jurisdictions with three objectives in mind: (1) to discover how the medication entered the system of the horse in order to prevent future positive tests; (2) to manage and report sub-therapeutic levels of therapeutic medication overages in a way that does not further degrade the public image of racing; and (3) to sufficiently penalize the violators and discourage further attempts to violate the rules”

Let’s focus on number (2) for a moment. Fact: Therapeutic medications are used to treat a condition, and the medication in some cases can be detected long after the original condition is gone. i.e. no one is advocating treating horses to “coverup” a condition so that they can run. We are talking about treating a horse with a legal product for a real condition which we can eliminate so that the horse can be healthy to run. But the legal product produces a positive test for a long time. Right now, the public (apparently including some of the people posting on this forum) think that a positive for a subtherapeutic level (meaning it had no impact on the animal on raceday) of a drug is effectively the same as an etorphine positive.

Additionally, there are a lot of great, new effective medications that we cannot use in race horses at all simply because they will produce a positive test at a subtherapeutic level for a long time. Now we are bordering on inhumane. I cannot use the best possible drug for a condition, because it will test long after the horse is recovered and back to normal.

Racefan, it turns out that EPM is an excellent example of why some medications should be permissible. Ten years back, we only had one option to treat this disease, let’s call it PSD for discussion purposes. Horses would often be completely normal by 2 -3 months on this stuff, but if you dicontinued its use, the signs would worsen again. Withholding before competition was 5 days. If you raced Standardbreds, or had a show horse which would compete every week, you were off the medication more often than on it. A horse actually died at the Rolex as a result of being off the medication long enough to compete. So, normal on PSD, crash and burn off PSD. In order to treat the horse long enough to completely eliminate the disease, took from 6 months to indefinite (as long as several years). Now, you are placing an untenable burden on the owner if you expect them to wait years. As long as the drug is not performance enhancing (PSD is an anti-protozoal only), it should be permitted. Not doing so is inhumane.

There are many other examples of this. This is why threshold levels should be established and therapeutic medications permitted in the test samples. And those “positives” should not even be reported, because the average Racefan can’t tell the difference between a “real” positive for something like EPO or etorphine and an isoxsuprine positive. If I can’t educate the die hard people on this forum, the AAEP is not going to be able to educate the general public.

I cannot see that I have ever suggested comments cannot be made unless I determine who is qualified to make a comment. I believe I stated clearly exactly what I was trying to determine through my unscientific survey.

It also confirms how readily mudslingers can indulge in their favorite game of character assassination, when it can be done under the cloak of anonimity.

The more I think of it, the more compelling my conclusion: If you are ashamed to put your name to it - don’t write it.

This is my last comment on this or any other topic.

I just want you to know that the mother ship-AVMA, of which the AAEP has affilitation have recent published press releases that say horse slaughter in Mexico is OKee DoeKee and at the begining of their legislative agenda year, said they would support the slaughter bound horse on double decker ban bill, HR 305. But now they are waffling on HR 305 and still support nonhead restraint, captive bolt horse slaughter of US Horses with no production records. Now, if they can’t get their act straight on decent transport and euthanasia for US Horses, just what exactly can they contribute to the improvement of horse racing in the US? Plus there are racing entities trying to discipline racer owners/trainers/breeders that sell to human consumption horse slaughter. What’s with the mixed messages? The AVMA and AAEP seem to have some committment issues. I bet the white paper wouldn’t even make good tp.

Good story Ray…keep up the good work. I love watching the dinosaurs squirm in the tar pits of failing racing.