By Ryan Goldberg
tables migrating from New Yorkto Florida in the late fall andreturning in the spring is as familiaras the birds which tail them. But
besides the weather, the horses inthose stables, on arrival and thendeparture, must get accustomed
to changes in their drug routine, as
important as any decision a trainer
will make nowadays.
This is what the stables had
grown used to in the Sunshine
State. Corticosteroids, such as
betamethasone (Celestone) andtriamcinolone acetonide (Vetalog),
can be administered 24 hours before
a race, with the unique exceptionof prednisolone sodium succinate,
which is allowed, like furosemide(Lasix), four hours before post. The
24-hour threshold also goes for a hostof non-steroidal anti-inflammatory
drugs (NSAIDs) – flunixin, ketoprofen,
phenylbutazone. Clenbuterol, thepopular bronchodilator beloved for its
anabolic effects, reportedly has a fiveday withdrawal time. The analgesic
butorphanol is also reportedly
permitted until three days before arace, the sedative acepromazine atfour days, the pain-killer lidocaine atseven. The state doesn’t regulate
total carbon dioxide (TCO2), thebyproduct of milkshaking (a solutionof sodium bicarbonate administered
to racehorses by stomach tube 4 to
6 hours before racing to counteract
the accumulation of lactic acid in themuscles), ceding this responsibility
to its racetracks. Tampa Bay Downs,
for example, claims to test all gradedstakes runners and randomly inother races.
Arriving in New York only weeks
ago, the same trainers found different
standards:
five-daywithdrawal
periods for corticosteroids whenadministered systemically and sevendays when injected in the joints.
Like most states, Florida evidently
doesn’t make a distinction. Flunixin isS'U0DU\6FROOD\HQJLQHHUHGUDFLQJVXUIDFHVFRP

allowed until 24 hours before a race,ketoprofen and phenylbutazone until
48 hours. Clenbuterol cannot be
used within 14 days. Butorphanol
and acepromazine and lidocaine are
permitted until four days. The state
calls a positive on TCO2 levels above
37 millimoles per liter.
Something as standard as who
administers Lasix differs: private
veterinarians in Florida versus stateveterinarians in New York. Even the
drug tests are dissimilar. To test
for several of the more common
corticosteroids and a select numberof NSAIDs – all Class 4 and 5
substances – Florida employs thinlayer chromatography (TLC), a fastand inexpensive method which,according to expert opinion, hasbeen outdated since the 1980s andutilized by few other states. The statelegislature determines this.
“That testing is not sensitive at all,”says Dr. Mary Scollay, the equine
medical director of the Kentucky
Horse Racing Commission, whopreviously spent 13 years in Florida
racing. “There is a general knowledge
that going to Florida in the winter, aMay 10, 2013 | 1

trainer will have more options to race
on medication than he would in his
home state.”
The differences between the twostates are made greater becauseof recent changes in New York in
response to the task force on the
2011-12 fatalities at Aqueduct (theNew York Task Force on Racehorse
Health and Safety). It extended
its withdrawal time for clenbuterol
from four to 14 days, systemic
use of corticosteroids from 48
hours to five days and their intraarticular administration from five toseven days. The withdrawal time
for methylprednisolone acetate, apopular corticosteroid, but potentiallydegradative to the joint capsule, soldas DepoMedrol, was extended to 15
days.
The value of the task force’s
report cannot be overstated. Like atime capsule, it pulls back the veil
on racing as it currently operates,
portraying its profound dependence
on permissible drugs. Scollay was
one of its authors, along with Jerry
Bailey, Scott Palmer and Alan M.
Foreman.
What happened when New Yorkreformed its medication rules?
Shippers disappeared, its average
field size dropped, and Aqueduct cut
six mid-week days. One could nothave dreamed up a better summaryof the need for uniform, not tomention tougher, drug regulations.
The comparison between Florida
and New York is only one example;
every state offers a dizzying
assortment of drugs for trainers, by
way of their veterinarians, to choose
from. As far as withdrawal times andthresholds – not to mention penalties
for exceeding them – no two states
are alike.
Not even neighbors, like Texasand Louisiana, which share horses
and horsemen and where the mostcommon drugs are treated differently.
Texas permits only furosemide
on the day of the race, whereas

Louisiana reportedly allows up to five
adjunct bleeder medications. The
same for bute. Louisiana allows 5
milligrams the day before – though
2 milligrams for graded stakes –but Texas sticks with the lower
administration of 2 milligrams for all
races. And following new Racing
Medication and Testing Consortium(RMTC) guidelines, Texas recently
extended its withdrawal time forclenbuterol to 14 days and intraarticular injections of corticosteroids
to seven days, plus 21 for
DepoMedrol.
Louisiana, without identifying
which drugs, authorizes the “full use

What happened when
New York reformed
its medication rules?
Shippers disappeared,ȱȱęȱ£ȱ
dropped, and Aqueduct
cut six mid-week days.

of modern therapeutic measures
for the improvement and protectionof the health of a horse,” except on
the day of the race. This 24-houranything-goes rule is unique. In
racing parlance, Louisiana is called ahorsemen-friendly state.
“I have serious questions about it,
to be honest,” says Dr. Ken Quirk,
the Texas Racing Commission’s
equine medical director, who fears
his state will lose even more horses
to Louisiana as a result.
These disparities raise a question
at the heart of permissive medication
and American racing: If all of thesedrugs are classified as therapeutic,
their purpose presumably based on
science, then how could separate

racing jurisdictions approach themso differently?
It seems a trainer would have tobe crazy to use illegal drugs when somany legal ones are at his disposal.
Before the days of pharmacologicaldrugs, the goal was to “hop ‘em orstop ‘em,” but what the picture looks
like now is an everyday practice ofusing drugs to manage pain andother complications to get a horse
to post. Since the majority of horses
race for tags, it makes sense. “Theclaiming game does not protect thehorse,” Scollay says. “It’s like daytrading on the stock market.”From 2005 through 2011, there
were 3,497 post-race medication
rulings, not including furosemide,
collected from 32 states by The
Jockey Club. Of this total, 2,006
were for drugs related to pain
management and another 216 forcorticosteroids.
Medical records for the horses
who died at Aqueduct elevate to life
these cruel statistics. You see nearly
every trainer push right up against
the withdrawal time for a varietyof drugs, stacking similar NSAIDs
and corticosteroids, searching for
combinations which might prove
more effective than the parts. The
RMTC recently proposed rules
against “stacking” NSAIDs, but atpresent few states have them.
“It’s not uncommon for a
racehorse in a lot of jurisdictions, notjust Texas,” Quirk says, “to receive
flunixin at 36 or 24 hours before therace, maybe even ketoprofen at thesame time, and the day before two
milligrams of bute and then also
dexamethasone phosphate, which isa corticosteroid. I have an issue withthat. If you have all those on board,
how does that impact the pre-race
inspection process?”
This greatly concerned the authorsof the Aqueduct report. Seven of
the 21 fatalities had received intraarticular injections of corticosteroids
near the race, but their trainers didn’t
May 10, 2013 | 2

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report this to the stewards, a rulethat was never enforced. Coronado
Heights, a name which never leaves
the mind once you hear his story,
was one of those horses.
The four-year-old bay gelding
could never match his well-regarded
pedigree, by Pulpit out of theCoronado’s Quest mare Coronado
Rose. He began his career for a$12,500 tag on Jan. 12, 2012, andwon that day, but two starts and six
weeks later, on Feb. 25, he broke
down on the track.
The following was his pre-race
regimen. Five days before his final
race, he was treated for inflammationof the medial stifle joints. He wassedated intravenously with xylazine
and dormosedan, his joints injectedwith 80 mg of DepoMedrol and
5 cc hyaluronic acid – the first to
decrease inflammation and the otherto prevent it – and given 5 mg offlunixin. Three days later, he got anassortment of NSAIDs intravenously– two mg of bute, five more mg offlunixin, and Legend, pure hyaluronic
acid – and injected intra-muscularly
with Estrone and joint treatment
May 10, 2013 | 3

Adequan. The next day, Feb. 24, two more mg of bute, suspending Ziadie for two months, he appealed the case
and Vitamin B1 and calcium. According to the death for two years.
Even something as severe as the findings ofcertificate, Michael McCarthy, overseeing Coronado
Heights for trainer Todd Pletcher, said the breakdown dermorphin, the extremely powerful painkiller derived
was a complete shock to him and that the horse had from South American frog secretion, doesn’t mean
no soundness issues. Either this was a cruel joke or an automatic ban. Though Quarter horse racetracks
in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico
this battery of drugs was standard
and California have used theirpractice.
private-property rights to exclude
Nothing about this was prohibited,
Accordingtothetrainers for Class 1 violations, inalthough injecting DepoMedrol soLouisiana, seven of the eight frogclose to the race is now forbiddenȱęǰjuice trainers have obtained stays of
in New York. Coronado Heights
their suspensions – Alvin Smith Jr.
wouldn’t have failed a drug test, sinceMichael McCarthy,(suspended 10 years); John Darrel
each was prescribed according tooverseeing Coronado Soileau (10 years); Alonzo Loya (fiveits individual threshold. There are noyears); Kyi Lormand (three years);
rules in New York against stacking
Heightsfortrainer
Anthony Agilar (six years); andsimilar-working drugs.
Gonzalo Gonzales (three years). In
When tests are blown, it is the
Todd
Pletcher,said
the meantime, they keep winningcost of doing business. For instance,
no trainer in America has had more
the breakdown was a races.
As far as their everyday use on thereported drug positives than Kirk
complete shock to him track, corticosteroids have become
Ziadie, according to public records,
a new front in medication reform.
yet Ziadie once again leads the
and
that
the
horse
had
Though states like New York, Texas
Calder standings as he has for muchand Minnesota have restricted itsof his 12-year career. His horses havenosoundnessissues.
use close to the race, most statesearned about $11 million in purses,
seem stuck at the 48-hour threshold,while on 41 occasions they’ve
Either this was aor even 24 hours. Which means afailed drug tests, tests which are
horse can be injected, dangerously
cruel joke or thiswidely seen as insensitive anyway.
in the joints, after it passes the entry
Despite this record, Ziadie was onlyĴ¢ȱȱȱ
box.
fined a total of $13,100 – not evenThe
medicalopinionon
the winner’s share of one race – andstandard
practice.
corticosteroids
is
that
they
are
highlyhis horses never disqualified of purse
potent, especially when injected
money. When Florida’s Division of
intra-articularly, and successfullyPari-Mutuel Wagering finally tried
quiet joint inflammation and thereby reduce pain andlameness. Their relief is often temporary, however, andwhen used close to exercise can prove deleterious. You
can only “tap” a horse so many times, too, before finding
diminishing returns.
And not all corticosteroids are created equal, claims
Dr. Wayne McIlwraith, Director of the Orthopaedic
Research Center at Colorado State University, who hasstudied them intensely. “DepoMedrol is bad; the others
are good. That’s the bottom line,” McIlwraith said at the
Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit IV held last
October at Keeneland.
Because the drugs are long-acting and, dependingon their administration, may stay in the bloodstream
for several weeks or more, regulation is challenging.
Blood tests cannot indicate how or when they wereadministered, says Texas’s Quirk. Until recently, states.LUN=LDGLHZLWK*,ZLQQHU7UXVW1/XFN+RUVHSKRWRV
rarely tested for it; through the ‘60s and ‘70s, they
May 10, 2013 | 4

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were legal on the day of the race.
Minnesota was one of the first tochange. Only with the newest testing
method – liquid chromatography–
mass spectrometry (LC-MS) – canit be detected at minute amounts,
says Dr. Jill Hovda, the equine
medical director there. Oldertechniques are bound to miss them;for this reason, Florida, which uses
the antiquated TLC method, has
never called a positive since atleast 2005.
In Florida, the use of prednisolone
sodium succinate on race-day is arelic of that older time. Kent Stirling,
the head of its horsemen’s group,
has argued that it prevents heatprostration. However, no otherstates in sunny climes allow it.
Short-acting, it supposedly treatsanimals on the verge of shock. “Asan effort to stave off heat prostration
I think it is a real stretch,” says Quirk,
himself familiar with sweltering Texas
days. Several Northeast trainers
who race in Florida during the winterhave confided that they believe thispractice crazy.
As powerful as they are, McIlwraith
said that corticosteroids can easily
be pushed out to 14 days – a great
distance from the common 48-hour
rule. “There needs to be a point
where therapy ends and competition
begins,” he said pointedly. “That ispart of the dilemma we have.”
Repetitiveuse,
McIlwraith
found, particularly of DepoMedrol,can cause significant damage tothe cartilage in the joint. Out-ofcompetition regulation, the Aqueduct
report concluded, is desperately
needed. Horses passing through theclaiming ranks are bound to receive
redundant, and thus dangerous,
treatment. Like Almighty Silver,
who made 44 starts for earnings of$372,215 and was claimed threetimes in the three months leading up
to his final race at Aqueduct, eachclaim making his medical record,
which didn’t transfer with change
in trainers, increasingly problematic.
He received four intra-articular
injections five days prior to his fatal
breakdown on March 4, 2012. Not
enough time had passed to assess

ZZZYDOOH\YHWFRP
May 10, 2013 | 5his response to that treatment, thereport concluded.
“Trainers were quite frank to say
they would claim a horse and inject
it with corticosteroids to get it out
there and get claimed,” Scollay says.
“And this is not only in New York.”
She added: “The industry as awhole needs to contemplate what
we learned from New York.”
What else did they learn? Thatnothing epitomizes racing’s drug
problems better than clenbuterol,
which goes by the trade name
Ventipulmin and treats lower airway
inflammation and upper respiratory
infections, but also builds muscle
mass. Scollay and her colleagues
found that clenbuterol was being
used beyond its labeled therapeutic
purposes and was as regular as
feed time.
Clenbuterol arrived on thebackstretch around 30 years ago; thelate veterinarian Alex Harthill was oneof the first to import it, from Europe,and prescribe it here. It did not gain
F.D.A. approval until 1998, and thus
went undetected in the afternoons
for almost two decades. Once a test
came out, it quickly surfaced in postrace samples, especially in California,
where six trainers, including Darrell
Vienna, Bruce Headley, and Vladimir
Cerin, had horses test positive.
Ted West, the trainer of Budroyale,
had eight different horses fail tests.
California officials decided to allow
it, with minor restrictions, and formuch of the next 10 years, there andelsewhere, its withdrawal time wason the order of a few days to a week.
When anabolic steroids werebanned in 2010, clenbuterol became
even more popular. “I use a lot of
clenbuterol in horses,” Scott Lake,
who has led the nation in wins
several times, said that year in a
television interview. The number of
positives support this trend: from2005 through 2012, 61 percent of
the total occurred in the last three
years of that period, according to

public records from 23 states.
In 2011, California found the drugin 54 percent of horses. “Clenbuterol
is one of the worst things that
happened to racing,” Hall of Fame
trainer Jack Van Berg told a forum
on drug use last year.
For its Aqueduct investigation,
Scollay says, “We asked trainers,‘Do you have a regular medication program?’ All of them said no. And
then we asked them, ‘Do you use
clenbuterol?’ ‘Yes, we do and we ZZZFOHQEXWHUROLQIRFRP

For its Aqueduct
investigation, Scollay
says, “We asked
trainers, ‘Do you havea regular medication
program?’ All of themsaid no. And then we
asked them, ‘Do you
use clenbuterol?’ ‘Yes,
we do and we give it
on a daily basis.’” The
way they described it,
she says, “was not likea prescription drug,
which is what it is, butlike a feed supplement
you give twice a day.”give it on a daily basis.’” The way
they described it, she says, “wasnot like a prescription drug, which iswhat it is, but like a feed supplement
you give twice a day.”
The trainers described how, ona regular cycle, a horse bounced
back and ate better and looked

better – effects of anabolic steroids,
Scollay says, not airway medication.
“We gave them the opportunity to
say we need it to maintain airway
health. ‘The barns are dusty,’ things
like that…You could’ve given them
that. But no, they all described the
anabolic effects.”
Its manufacturer, Boehringer
Ingelheim, says clenbuterol should
be withdrawn 30 days before arace, and the American Quarter
Horse Association now follows thatguideline. New Mexico recently
banned it going on a second year.
Clenbuterol clears the system
slowly in urine but quickly in blood,
usually gone within 96 hours in thelatter. Its anabolic effects remain.
It takes approximately 30 days toclear urine. Most states still test
blood, Scollay says, but the only
way to legitimately prohibit its use
is by testing urine; with a 72-hour
withdrawal time, for example, a blood
test cannot distinguish between a
trainer who used clenbuterol every
day for a month up to that threshold,or for five days.
Despite this, clenbuterol istreated differently from state tostate, according to a survey ofstate racing commissions and stateveterinarians – anywhere from a
24-hour withdrawal (Louisiana andOklahoma) to 14 days (New York,
Texas, Maryland) or 21 days (Arizona,
California) or 30 days (Oregon,
New Mexico). The rest, however,May 10, 2013 | 6

fall under a week, and some, like
Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska and
Massachusetts offer no guideline.
The racing commissions of Florida, atfive days, and Illinois, at seven days,
declare a zero-tolerance policy,
whatever that means. Kentucky and
Pennsylvania and Canada are atthree days, New Jersey and Iowa
and Ohio at four days, and Delawareand West Virginia and Michigan at a
week.
Looking at clenbuterol rulings
from 2005 through 2012, which canbe incomplete, one finds almost nointerstate or even intrastate rhyme
or reason in how rule-breaking ishandled. Some states always takeaway the purse, others do not.
Some states hand out penalties ofa few hundred dollars, others a few
thousand.
The number of positives per state
could depend on many things. Take
Pennsylvania, which led all stateswith 66. Does that mean it has
greater clenbuterol abuse or more
enforcement? Does it employ moresensitive tests? Do their penalties
affect recidivism? In every instance,
Pennsylvania took away the purse.
Ohio had 18 positives, all ofwhich merited disqualifications. Itsfines were $250 or $500, although
it handed out suspensions of 15 or
30 days. Illinois, a “zero-tolerance”
state, levied fines of $1,000 or$1,500 but only one suspension.
California, which had 51 positives
and disqualified the horse all but
10 times, seemed to offer a ladderof penalties from no fine for a first
offense, to $1,000, to $3,000, andup to $10,000 and $15,000. Other
states rarely fine a trainer more than
$1,000. In 2011, one California
offender earned a $7,500 fine and a90-day suspension.
Kentucky had only six reported
positives,
which
seems
low
compared to other major states. It
only disqualified the winner on threeoccasions, assigned 15- or 30-day

suspensions, and didn’t levy a finebut once.
Florida, with its “zero-tolerance”
approach,
had34
reported
positives. Not a single one merited
a disqualification, and only once asuspension. Most fines were liketraffic tickets – either $250 or $300
– with the recent average at $500.
Only three times did a fine reach$1,000.
“If one were inclined to race on
clenbuterol, then why not race inFlorida?” asks Scollay. “It’s the costof doing business. Two-hundred
dollars is not a bad investment.”
Clenbuterol is classified as a class
3 drug, but Florida’s penalties formore serious offenses – the first twoclasses of drugs – are softer thanother major racing jurisdictions. So
the sunshine isn’t the only attraction.
For the Jockeys’ Guild last January,
officials of The Jockey Club revealed
statistics on medication rulings it hadcollected. They found that 15 percent
of trainers licensed between 2005
and 2011 had drug rulings duringthat time. Excluding those with twoor three rulings separated by years,
1.5 percent – approximately 200
trainers – accounted for a third of
all drug rulings. In their words, thissmall group was shaping public
perception of racing.
Using
publicly
available
documents, the Thoroughbred Daily
News learned the identities of thesetrainers. They are familiar names.
The top three had the majority of
their violations in Florida.
From 2005 through 2011, Kirk
Ziadie led all trainers with 33 reported
positives. Then came Dale Bennett,
who races in Tampa in the winterand Chicago the rest of the year, with
25. Marty Wolfson, a Breeders’ Cupwinner, completed the trifecta with
21. They were followed by Jamie
Ness, the nation’s leading trainer
by wins (15 violations); Edward
Clouston (all 13 in West Virginia);
Jason Wise (all 12 in Nebraska);

Rick Dutrow (12, seven of those in
Florida); Jerry Hollendorfer (all 11
in California); Troy Bethke (all 11 in
Minnesota); and Scooter Davis (nineof 10 in West Virginia).
Some conclusions can be drawn.
None of the individuals were scaredaway by their racing commissions
during this time, as their rule-breaking
was concentrated in one state. Only
later did Dutrow get slapped witha 10-year suspension and Davisbooted from Charles Town for using
a program trainer while serving a
six-month drug suspension. Bethke
has not entered a horse since
September. The other trainers arestill in business.
The most obvious conclusion,
especially after expanding the picture
to the 50 most-penalized trainers, isalarming: the correlation between
leading in drug violations and leadingin wins and training titles. These
trainers enjoy unbridled successat their home tracks. It is a truth ofAmerican racing that falls with theweight of an anvil.

Next in this Series:
THE INTERNATIONAL
DIFFERENCE

Click here to read Part I

May 10, 2013 | 7