Did you know the USA show jumping team won the gold medal at the Athens Olympics, though the Germans stood on the gold medal podium? It took seven months, two positive drug tests and an appeal to reach the final conclusion. A German rider had innocently used a prohibited drug, in the form of an ointment, on his horse's skin. By a strange coincidence, Germany was the first country to use doping tests back in the 1920s.
Today there are equine drug tests for more than 2,500 different substances. Just to keep up with "designer drugs," the Jockey Club is raising $3 million to build a lab whose sole job will be to supply other labs with new tests.
Today several substances can be used as testing samples. The most common are hair, urine and blood. AERC uses blood. The procedure for collecting samples is full of checks and balances to assure samples are not tampered with or confused.
The first step if your horse is selected for testing is filling out the sample identification card with the "who–when–where" information. The veterinarian collects two vials of blood per horse and labels the tubes with a sample number. The blood drawing is witnessed -- this is the first safeguard in the collection process. A witness signs that he or she observed the procedure and that it was drawn from the correct horse.
The top section of the sample collection card is torn off and placed into a bag with the two labeled tubes of blood. An "integrity tape" is placed across the top, identifying who sealed it and when. An observer is requested to sign off on the "witness to sealing of sample" line on the sample card. The sample bag is placed vertically in a cooled container with the other samples and is required to be kept under lock and key until shipping. Even sealing the shipping container must be done precisely, so the laboratory can recognize if tampering occurred in transit.
The sample identification cards are sent to the AERC executive offices for safekeeping. This acts as a further safeguard, because the laboratory technician is only supplied with an identification number and no personal information.
Those of you whose horses have been blood tested at a ride may have wondered why so much blood is needed. At the lab, half of the sample is put into cold storage. The other half is tested. If the first testing process is questionable, the second tube will undergo a complete analysis.
High-tech testing
The state-of-the-art technology used to thoroughly check AERC's blood samples for prohibited substances is by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). It was first used to identify horse doping in the 1980s. The gas chromatographer is like an oven and the mass spectrometer "weighs" molecules by their mass and electrical charge. It is then possible for a computer to count how many molecules of each type are present in the blood sample.
GC/MS technology is so sensitive that it can pick up traces of drugs in horses occupying a stall days after some other horse was given a prohibited substance. Due to this sensitivity, AERC's Veterinary Committee must evaluate the quantity and type of substance in question. The committee will advise the Protest and Grievance Committee -- who receives the Vet Committee report of any positive drug test -- whether the detected drug level is significant. A therapeutic level of a drug will be enough to affect the horse and have the drug's designed effect, i.e., kill bacteria (antibiotics) or stop inflammation (bute).
The GC/MS technology is also used in areas completely unrelated to drug testing. Another horse-related GC/MS area of inquiry is "reading" diet and growth in the teeth of prehistoric horses. This allows vision into ancient patterns of rain and forage growth. It won't be long until another commonly used drug test called ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) will be available to diagnose tapeworm infestations and detect "biomarkers" or indicators of abnormal skeletal turnover. According to the Equine Veterinary Journal, these biomarkers may help veterinarians diagnosis of all sorts of bone, joint and cartilage problems through the use of a ready-made test kits.
Regulations differ by country
Endurance organizations from other parts of the world have different regulations about what may be used during competition and the costs vary accordingly. USEF, AERA (Australian Endurance Riders' Association) and FEI allow certain substances, such as Regumate and certain antibiotics. AERC has allowed Regumate although there is vigorous debate on whether it should be allowed under rule 13. AERC does not allow antibiotics under rule 13. Other substances are banned by all organizations, for example procaine, found in procaine penicillin and local anesthetics, and it has a very prolonged "withdrawal" time.
According to John G. Lengel, DVM, head of USEF's drug testing department, MSM, DMG, Surpass (NSAID cream), Buscopan (cramping and colic) and Gastrogard (ulcers) are allowed under both FEI and USEF rules governing international competitions. AERC does not currently permit the use of any of these substances.
Testing costs
USEF charges every participant a $7 drug fee, plus another $5 administration fee, or $12 total, at their sanctioned events, including those held in California. California has a mandatory state-run drug testing program and the cost for the California program is $5 per rider, with no administration fee. For the rest of the country AERC uses Philadelphia-based Dalare Associates as its national testing laboratory and charges riders $1 per ride.
The cost for each horse AERC tests is approximately $65 plus overnight return postage. If the horse's initial screening is positive, the cost jumps another $150 to run the sample through GC/MS, for a total of $215. Clearly one of the many difficulties in reforming the AERC drug policy is financial. Confirmatory testing by another lab, if further testing is warranted, adds another $400.
The Australian Endurance Riders' Association, which seems to share many of AERC's values, allows omeprozole (Gastrogard) and Buscopan, but not valerian root. USEF also currently considers valerian root to be a tranquilizer and warns to stop use seven days before competition.
I personally cannot imagine using a tranquilizer on an endurance ride, but for the sake of argument, let's say Tranquilizer X became an AERC-permitted substance. Tranquilizer X will test positive during initial screening. If horses ridden by roughly 1% of the membership, or 60 riders, were tested and found to be positive, the cost of the drug program would increase by approximately $9000 to allow this legal substance. This is because the initial screening test only identifies a substance as a positive, and does not identify it as being Tranquilizer X. The drug would then have to be identified with further testing as either Tranquilizer X or a prohibited substance. Since Tranquilizer X is allowed, the cost of the additional testing would not be expected to be reimbursed to AERC by the rider.
Tests for any foreign substance or abnormal quantities of naturally occurring substances will produce a positive test, therefore every foreign substance that is approved for usage will cost AERC members more.
The Education Committee often receives questions about withdrawal times for substances, particularly MSM, Gastrogard and DMG. Stan Eichelberger, DVM, chairman of the Drug Committee, explained just a few of the intricacies that play into why there is no right answer to the withdrawal question.
-- Dehydrated horses conserve fluid and would tend to test positive for substances longer than fully hydrated horses.
-- The degree to which a horse is healthy metabolically, particularly in liver and kidney function, will affect how long a substance will remain in the body.
-- Fat horses and thin horses will test at different rates.
-- Route of administration of the drug (IV, IM, subcutaneous) affect withdrawal rates.
Melissa Ribley, DVM, chair of the Veterinary Committee, said one of the main difficulties in determining withdrawal times is the lab and "its level of sensitivity with regards to testing." She added, "A very good lab with sensitive testing methods can determine levels out to an almost infinite amount. Therefore an absolute clearance time for a drug is determined from lab to lab and will change with sensitive methods.
"Veterinarians talk about clearance times in half-lifes -- the time when half the drug will be cleared," Dr. Ribley said. "This gives you an idea if it will take a long time for the drug to clear. The full clearance down to a zero level is technically infinite. This is why a 'no tolerance' level of drugs sounds politically well and good, but in reality is not what we can or should be trying to achieve."
It is conceivable for highly sensitive equipment to pick up traces of drugs for weeks or even months after the administration. According to President Stagg Newman, "Therefore it is time to rethink our drug policy as a true zero tolerance drug policy may no longer be realistic." He explained, "We need a drug policy consistent with our philosophy and with the realities of today's better scientific testing."
