Posts Tagged ‘mepivacaine’

By Ray Paulick
Eclipse Award-winning trainer Steve Asmussen has been suspended six months and fined $1,500 by Lone Star Park stewards representing the Texas Racing Commission for the case involving a maiden winner at the Grand Prairie track in May 2008 that subsequently tested positive for a metabolite of lidocaine, a Class 2 drug under the classifications of the Association of Racing Commissioners International.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

Savvy businesses recognize value. Advertise in the Paulick Report.

Support the Paulick Report. Make a donation today.

Sign up for our Email Flashes to get the latest news, analysis and commentary from Ray Paulick

Tommy Simon’s Vinery Stable has moved 21 horses from the barn of trainer Steve Asmussen, not long after an allegation of a positive test for traces of the therapeutic anesthetic  lidocaine from an Asmussen-trained  horse that won a maiden race at Lone Star Park in Texas May 10.

Jess Jackson, majority owner of reigning Horse of the Year Curlin, said he retains confidence in the 4-year-old colt’s trainer, Steve Asmussen, in the wake of a reported medication positive in Texas by another runner in Asmussen’s stable.

Asmussen has been notified by the Texas Racing Commission that the post-race drug test for Timber Trick, a 3-year-old Forestry filly owned by Graham Beck’s Gainesway Stable, detected the prohibited Class 2 medication lidocaine after a maiden victory at Lone Star Park May 10. Timber Trick won the six-furlong race by seven lengths as the even-money favorite while making her sixth lifetime start. According to published reports, the recommended penalty is a six-month suspension.

Asmussen’s attorney, Karen Murphy, told Daily Racing Form she will "vigorously defend" the trainer’s innocence. A hearing has been set for July 18.

"I trust Steve to be an honest trainer and he has my confidence," Jackson said in a statement to the Paulick Report. "Steve knows and supports my stance opposing any performance enhancing race day medications and I have never had cause to question his treatment or care of my horses. Steve Asmussen and his legal team have informed me that they are contesting the allegations by the Texas Racing Commission."

"I do believe this once again brings to the forefront our industry’s urgent need for a national horse owners’ organization that can bring uniformity, transparency and accountability to medication use and testing in thoroughbred racing," Jackson continued. "As I have stated previously, we need to immediately replace the existing patchwork of state standards with a centralized and independent medication testing program."

Jackson recently testified before a Congressional hearing that examined drugs in the Thoroughbred, among other issues. "Speaking bluntly," Jackson told the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection on June 19, "the horse industry has a drug problem. We must replace the existing patchwork of state standards with a uniform national standard that is in accord with international zero-tolerance rules."

Asmussen, the leading American trainer in 2008 by both earnings and winners, was forced to sit out six months in 2006 due to a suspension after one of his horses tested positive for mepivacaine. Both lidocaine and mepivacaine are anesthetic medications that have therapeutic use but can be used to block pain and enhance performance. A listing of previous rulings involving Asmussen from the database of the Association of Racing Commissioners International shows a number of other medication violations during his career as a trainer.

By Ray Paulick

Copyright ©2008, The Paulick Report

Lidocaine and clenbuterol, the drugs associated with the latest positive tests for Steve Asmussen and Rick Dutrow, are commonly used therapeutic medications with specific uses. Both also have the potential for being abused and are prohibited substances.

The positive tests will be widely covered in the mainstream media because Dutrow and Asmussen are trainers of the two leading Thoroughbreds in America, Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown and 2007 Horse of the Year, Curlin, respectively.

Asmussen’s positive in Texas was for lidocaine, a short-acting anesthetic similar to procaine. Dr. Thomas Brokken, a racetrack practitioner in South Florida and past president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, said lidocaine is a lot like the numbing anesthetics used by human dentists.

“Usually it’s very short-acting, with a half-life in minutes,” he said. “Normally, I was use it to repair lacerations, suture fillies up behind, or to block horses that are lame and I need to find out where they are lame,” Brokken said. “That’s about all I use it for. Some may use it in an epidural for a horse sore in its back or pelvic area.” A Class 2 drug according to the Association of Racing Commissioners International classifications, lidocaine has a recommended withdrawal time in Texas of 96-120 hours.

Dr. Ron Genovese of the Cleveland Equine Clinic in Ohio, said he no longer uses lidocaine in his practice, preferring to use mepivacaine for lameness examinations and other procedures where an anesthetic is required. Both Dutrow and Asmussen, along with multiple Eclipse Award-winning trainer Todd Pletcher, have been penalized for past mepivacaine positives.

Dutrow’s Kentucky positive was for clenbuterol, a Class 3 drug with a recommended 72-hour withdrawal time in Kentucky (the recommended withdrawal time in New York, where Dutrow is based, is 96 hours). Clenbuterol, typically given to horses daily in the form of the Ventipulmin syrup, is used to help clean up mucus in a horse’s airways.

“A lot of horses have mucus,” Brokken said. “Clenbuterol doesn’t heal anything but it opens the airways to help the macrophages clean up debris in the throat. The macrophages work on oxygen, so if there’s no oxygen they don’t perform well. Clenbuterol opens the airways to oxygen.”

Stephen Reed, a veterinarian at Rood and Riddle Hospital in Lexington, Ky., estimates that 50% or more horses in training have some degree of mucus.

Genovese, who sees horses mainly at Thistledown racetrack in Ohio, said he sees very little use of clenbuterol in his practice. “It’s expensive,” he said. “But mucus is a chronic, irritating factor in the racehorse business. You have to understand that when horses put in bad performances, people have to search for reasons, which is understandable. You can’t talk to the patient. We scope it and and you can see they breathe in a lot of dirt or Polytrack. Many trainers or owners see that and think one and one adds up to two.”

Some trainers racing on circuits with higher purses use the drug on a majority of their horses to help them train more vigorously, since it improves their breathing. “I use that medication on many of my horses and only once can ever remember having a problem with it,” Dutrow told the New York Times.

Clenbuterol is used illegally with other livestock, including sheep and cattle, to produce more defined muscles. “The drug does have a partitioning effect,” Reed said. “It selects for lean body mass. Some trainers use it for a minor anabolic effect. If used correctly for problems in the lungs, however, it can have a great benefit.

 “One of the things that worries me,” Reed continued, “is that some of the newer, more sophisticated testing is able to detect levels that couldn’t be therapeutic but would indicate the drug is on board. In the current day and age, regarding medications in any athlete, human or equine, having nothing on board is the way to go. As a bronchialdilator, it has the potential to help. It shouldn’t be given close to the time of racing.”

By Ray Paulick

Copyright ©2008, The Paulick Report