As the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) moves through its first months of drug testing Thoroughbreds nationwide, some owners and trainers are thinking harder about the supplements they give their horses. In one case, two California trainers were provisionally suspended after their horses had positive tests for diisopropylamine. Owner Jeff Plotkin, who has horses with suspended trainer Reed Saldana, told the Paulick Report last week that Saldana suspects the positive may originate from an equine dietary supplement.
Here at the Paulick Report, we've done extensive original and aggregated reporting on equine dietary supplements through the years, looking at both their regulation as well as their efficacy. Below is a round-up of some of our most relevant articles.
–Click Here To Cheat? Online Peddlers Of Racehorse Snake Oil Go Largely Unchecked In 2016, well before the 2020 federal indictments, we zeroed in on websites marketing injectable products to trainers that they called “supplements.” HorsePreRace often promoted its products in ways that suggested they were either analogues of existing prescription medications or performance enhancers — and as indicated by indictments from the Southern District of New York four years later, those products and their marketing didn't adhere to Food and Drug Administration regulation.
One reason HorsePreRace and others like them will sometimes call a product a “supplement” is because the FDA does not oversee the safety, efficacy, or production of dietary supplements, but the agency does have a number of complex approvals required for animal drugs.
One of the warning signs for consumers about the HorsePreRace products should have been the lack of ingredients list available on the company's website or on product packaging. Court documents released in 2021 gave us a behind-the-scenes look at the formulas actually used to create those “supplements.” In some cases, the ingredients seemed pretty harmless, but experts told us that other elements raised serious safety or purity concerns. Read that analysis here.
—Be Skeptical Of Equine Supplement Claims In 2019, we pointed you toward reporting from The Horse magazine which gave consumers a guide for reading the label on an equine dietary supplement. Among the recommendations: Don't be afraid to contact the manufacturer if you have a question about an ingredient, and take a look at peer-reviewed research on the primary ingredients to see if they've been shown to do what they claim.
—Too Much Of A Good Thing: When Extra Nutrients Become Harmful To Horses Many owners feel they are depriving their horses if they aren't feeding them a bunch of supplements. “If a little is good, a lot is better” is often the philosophy, with the reasoning being a horse will simply release extra nutrients in waste with no harm done. Experts say this is a common misconception and one that can be detrimental to the horse's health and the owner's pocketbook. What owners fail to realize is that even if a nutrient isn't toxic in large quantities, a horse's body still has to work harder to process nutrients that are fed in excess of its needs. Besides dietary inefficiency, piling on too many supplements could increase the risk of accidentally overloading a horse on one nutrient which could cause health problems or toxicity.
—Ramey: Is That Hoof Supplement Actually Helping Your Horse? Dr. David Ramey considers the most common ingredients in dietary supplements aimed at improving hoof health, and reviews the existing research on some of them. While he believes that a balanced diet can have a positive impact on hoof issues, he points out that many horses getting fed the proper amount of a commercially-produced feed are unlikely to be deficient in many of the most important minerals and proteins.
—Efficacy Of Oral Joint Supplements: Which Ingredients Actually 'Work'? Last year, we noted reporting from The Horse which broke down the most common ingredients in oral joint supplements to see what the existing research says about the efficacy of chondroitin sulfate, glucosamine, turmeric and more.
None of this is to say that all supplements are equally as problematic as the products peddled by HorsePreRace, or that all supplements are ineffective for all horses in all situations. Horsemen should consult with their veterinarian and/or nutritionist to determine if a given product is right for their horse. But HIWU has made clear that possession of substances that violate FDA regulation may constitute a rule violation, and also “positive test results stemming from the presence of a Prohibited Substance in a supplement, whether or not it was properly labeled, will be prosecuted by HIWU as ADMC Program violations.” The organization encourages horsemen to ask questions about the legality of a given product. Questions can be directed to Dr. Mary Scollay, HIWU chief of science at mscollay@hiwu.org.
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