race-day medication

Continuing a decades-long regional effort to enact uniform medication, safety and welfare reforms, protocols and rules, a coalition of 31 regulatory and stakeholder organizations representing all seven states in the Mid-Atlantic region have unanimously agreed to work together to implement a new rule that will significantly restrict the improper use of the bronchodilator clenbuterol. Under the current regional rule, clenbuterol may not be administered to a horse within 14 days of a race, and the concentration of the drug in a post-race blood sample may not exceed 140 picograms/ml. The...

Witnesses from the Thoroughbred industry who testified Tuesday in Washington, D.C., at a legislative hearing on the Horseracing Integrity Act agreed that the sport is facing an unprecedented equine health crisis. But they were sharply split as to whether the current version of a federal bill mandating an independent anti-doping and medication control program was the best way to keep the industry from slipping into deeper peril. The most cogent argument repeatedly put forth by pro-legislation speakers was that racehorses, unlike human athletes, don't have a say in being administered...