anti-doping | Horse Racing Free Tips

Tygart: USADA, Cycling Played A Role In Federal Indictments

Speaking on the Thoroughbred Daily News Writer's Room podcast this week, U.S. Anti-Coping Agency CEO Travis Tygart revealed the organization may have had a hand in the federal indictments that rocked the racing world last March.

Tygart revealed that USADA had handled a drug positive case with a cyclist who fell under the organization's jurisdiction and gotten information about the distributor of the drugs the cyclist was using. USADA became aware that the unnamed distributor also had connections to horse racing, and Tygart said the organization subsequently passed that information along to the FBI.

Tygart said USADA is still on a learning curve as it prepares to oversee anti-doping programs in horse racing, but he is confident a lot of the same principles will carry over from the world of human athletics. Like many equine drug testing experts, Tygart said post-competition testing should not be the only tool for an integrity program, and touted USADA's tip line, which it uses to help direct out-of-competition testing. Tests from tip information have a 22% positivity rate, according to Tygart — much higher than the typical rate for post-competition sampling.

Read more and listen to the full interview at the Thoroughbred Daily News

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Blue-Ribbon Nominating Committee Formed To Select Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority Board Members

Supporters of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) announced today the formation of a blue-ribbon nominating committee that will be responsible for selecting members of the board of directors of the HISA Authority as well as members of its two standing committees: Anti-doping and Medication Control, and Racetrack Safety.

The nominating committee was established through the collective efforts of leading Thoroughbred industry stakeholders, including Breeders' Cup, Churchill Downs Incorporated, Keeneland Association, and The Jockey Club. It is composed of seven independent members with diverse backgrounds: Len Coleman (co-chair), Dr. Nancy Cox (co-chair), Katrina Adams, Dr. Jerry Black, Gen. Joseph Dunford, Frank Keating, and Ken Schanzer.

The board of directors will consist of nine members, five of whom will be selected from outside the equine industry. Four members will be selected as representatives of various equine constituencies.

“The HISA will ensure that Thoroughbred racing is conducted with the highest integrity and safety standards under the aegis of the bill's established authority,” stated Co-Chair Coleman. “With this goal in mind, the aggregate expertise of the board of the authority and its standing committees must span a wide range of areas from equine health and track management to regulation and lab testing standards.”

“The nominating committee recognizes our responsibility to select the most qualified and dedicated individuals to comprise the board of the authority and its standing committees,” said Co-Chair Cox. “We are committed to this critical task and to the betterment of racing.”

The seven members of the nominating committee bring their own unique expertise and experiences to the role:

Len Coleman (co-chair) is the former president of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs. Coleman joined Major League Baseball in 1992 as the executive director of market development. Previously, Coleman was a municipal finance banker for Kidder, Peabody & Company and served as commissioner of both the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs and Department of Energy.
Dr. Nancy Cox (co-chair) is the vice president for Land Grant Engagement and the dean of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the University of Kentucky. Prior to that, she served as associate dean for Research and director of the Experiment Station at the university. Cox championed the formation of the UK Equine Initiative (now UK Ag Equine Programs), recognizing the importance of the horse industry and its significance to Kentucky.
Katrina Adams is the immediate past president of the United States Tennis Association (USTA), following two consecutive terms as the USTA's chairman and president. A successful professional tennis player, Adams was elected vice president of the International Tennis Federation in 2015 and was appointed as chairman of the Fed Cup Committee in 2016.
Dr. Jerry Black is a visiting professor at Texas Tech School of Veterinary Medicine and is an emeritus professor and Wagonhound Land and Livestock chair in Equine Sciences at Colorado State University. He is the former president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners and former chair of the board of trustees of the American Horse Council.
Gen. Joseph Dunford is the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation's highest-ranking military officer, and was the principal military advisor to the president, Secretary of Defense, and National Security Council from Oct. 1, 2015, through Sept. 30, 2019. Prior to becoming chairman, General Dunford served as the 36th Commandant of the Marine Corps.
Frank Keating is the former governor of Oklahoma. Prior to that role, his career in law enforcement and public service included time as a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, U.S. Attorney and state prosecutor, and Oklahoma House and Senate member. He served as assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury, associate U.S. attorney general, and general counsel for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Ken Schanzer served as president of NBC Sports from June 1998 until his retirement in September 2011. He also served as chief operating officer. During Schanzer's tenure, he secured the television rights to the Triple Crown races and Breeders' Cup for NBC. Before joining NBC Sports, he served as senior vice president of government relations for the National Association of Broadcasters.

The next order of business for the nominating committee is to develop a list of candidates to comprise the board of the HISA Authority and its standing committees. The board will solicit input from equine constituencies, and interested parties who would like to suggest recommendations may do so at horseintegrityandsafety@gmail.com.

The HISA, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Martha McSally (R-AZ), and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) on September 9, 2020, will focus on the integrity of Thoroughbred horse racing and the safety of Thoroughbred racehorses and jockeys by requiring national, uniform safety standards that include anti-doping and medication control and racetrack safety programs. Identical legislation was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by U.S. Congressmen Andy Barr (KY-06) and Paul Tonko (NY-20). It was passed in the House on September 29, 2020.

The HISA Authority will be an independent, non-governmental regulatory body, run by an independent board, responsible for improving current regulations and bringing a new level of transparency to Thoroughbred horse racing.

The Anti-Doping and Medication Control standing committee and the Racetrack Safety standing committee will each be composed of seven members. For both committees, the majority of the members will be independent and selected from outside the equine industry. A minority will be industry members selected to represent the various equine constituencies.

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British Horseracing Authority Updates Equine Anti-Doping Rules

The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) has confirmed a number of changes to its Equine Anti-Doping Rules this Wednesday, which will take effect from next month.

These changes follow a comprehensive review of the sport's anti-doping Rules announced in 2018, following a number of Disciplinary Panel cases which called into question the assumptions that had been made regarding the Rules and how they should be applied.

It was also felt that a review of these Rules would lead to them being made simpler to understand and follow, whilst ensuring they still protect those who work in, follow or bet on British Racing sufficiently from the threat of doping.

The BHA have consulted on both the Rules and associated penalties with directly with trainers and via the National Trainers Federation, with additional input from both the UK and World Anti-Doping Agencies and sports bodies such as the FEI.

Independent legal advice on Rule changes following on from the consultation has been provided by the specialist sports law practice, Northridge LLP.

The main changes to the Rules, which were last updated in 2015, relate to the circumstances in which the Responsible Person may be found in breach of the Rules but not be penalized when a case is heard in front of the independent Disciplinary Panel.

The new Rules do not require any changes to the processes or safeguards put in place by Trainers in their yards.

In summary the changes are:

If a horse tests positive for a prohibited substance, in order to avoid a penalty the responsible person must establish the precise source of the positive finding and that they had taken all reasonable precautions
Cautions are available for lower level breaches
Suspended sanctions are available for breaches

More information and the reasoning behind the changes can be read here. The new Rules and penalties can also be read in full by clicking “(Forthcoming)” on the BHA Rules website.

Tim Naylor, Director of Integrity and Regulation at the BHA, said:

“The culmination of this project has followed consultation with the appropriate parties as well as legal advice in relation to the Rule changes, and it is our hope that we now have a set of equine anti-doping Rules which are clear both for those who enforce them and those who are bound by them.

“We have to ensure that our Rules in relation to anti-doping are sufficiently robust, but also that as much as is possible in such a technical area everyone bound by the Rules understands what is required of them.

“Whilst in places the requirements upon the Responsible Person have been strengthened, there have also been changes to allow more appropriate penalties for lower and mid-level breaches of the Rules.

“We have communicated these changes now ahead of their implementation date next month to allow sufficient time for participants to ask any questions they may have prior to the Rules taking effect.”

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National Summary: 0.55 Percent Of All Racing Samples Tested Show Adverse Analytical Findings

US racing commissions sent 263,783 biological samples from horses participating in professional horse races to the testing laboratories.

Of those tests there were 1,461 adverse analytical findings accounting for 0.55 percent of all samples. 99.45 percent of samples tested were clear, indicating a high degree of compliance with anti-doping and medication rules based upon known information and data..

Of the adverse analytical findings, approximately three percent were clear attempts at doping as the substance detected had no reason to be present in the horse other than to provide a maximum enhancement of performance. Class 2 substances considered the next most serious level of substances that can affect performance accounted for 6.09 percent of all findings. Class 1 and Class 2 substances are generally considered “doping” and together they account for 9.03 percent of all 2019 detections.

As in prior years, the overwhelming substance detections (69.75 percent) involved therapeutic medications (Class 4 and 5 substances) that may affect performance to a lesser extent, but are still not permitted to be present in a horse when it races. With the exception of race day furosemide to mitigate or prevent bleedings, horse racing does not permit use of these substances with a therapeutic use exemption as defined in the World Anti-Doping Code.

21.83 percent of the detections involved Class 3 substances. These have a greater ability to affect performance and contain substances which may be therapeutic as well as those that might indicate a deliberate attempt to cheat.

This information represents the official testing results from all horse racing US jurisdictions, except Maine which did not respond to repeated requests for information.

Like the testing results in human and Olympic sport, these numbers should not lessen the resolve of the sport and its regulators to pursue substances that the labs are unable to test for. This is an ongoing challenge for the anti-doping programs in all professional sport and underscores the need for intelligence based efforts in this regard as well as intelligence based out of competition testing.

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