Maryland racing stakeholders and regulators have scheduled an online community forum to discuss and answer questions regarding the action by the Maryland Racing Commission to remove testing threshold levels for five corticosteroids.
The Zoom webinar meeting will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 28 at Noon eastern.
Participants include MRC Executive Director Mike Hopkins; MRC member Dr. Thomas Bowman, who chairs the commission's Equine Safety, Health and Welfare Advisory Committee; Dr. Dionne Benson, Chief Veterinary Officer for 1/ST RACING (The Stronach Group); Dr. Mary Scollay, Executive Director of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium and Alan Foreman, Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association general counsel and Chief Executive Officer of the THA.
The MRC, upon the recommendation of the advisory committee chaired by Bowman, approved a motion to modify a regulation on the five corticosteroids to eliminate testing threshold levels and employ limit of detection—the lowest level at which a laboratory can, with confidence, detect a substance in a sample.
The change will be filed with emergency status and there will be a public comment period. It is anticipated the updated regulation will be implemented Nov. 1, Hopkins said.
The five corticosteroids are dexamethasone, prednisolone, betamethasone, isoflupredone and triamcinolone. The current 14-day stand-down period for intra-articular injections will remain in place under 2019 model rules approved by the Association of Racing Commissioners International and RMTC.
The advisory committee discussed the proposal at a Sept. 8 meeting as a result of several dexamethasone positives and reports the corticosteroid was being regularly administered by some veterinarians at 48 hours before a race at a lower dose rather than the RMTC-recommended 72-hour withdrawal time at the regular dose.
The webinar is open to all Maryland horsemen and practicing veterinarians. Advance registration is required to join by clicking here.
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