Drugs in Racing

STB.

So I see its in the news again. Not Lasix this time, but Cobalt.

https://www.racingpost.com/news/shark-hanlon-winner-tests-positive-for-cobalt-at-galway-festival/346550

Isnt this what McConville lost his licence over ?

Wasnt there a recent positive test of some other trainer at a P2P for same ?

lemush

The “punishment” handed out to Hanlon sums up why the sport is such a laughing stock at times. Absolute joke.

Kauto

lemush wrote: »

The “punishment” handed out to Hanlon sums up why the sport is such a laughing stock at times. Absolute joke.

Cobalt has f all performance enhancing qualities.

Amazing the way its always the small man that gets caught. Its fairly obvious who in the sport is using drugs.

Auroras_encore

Ha even drugs cant help the worst trainer in ireland

markjbloggs

Auroras_encore wrote: »

Ha even drugs cant help the worst trainer in ireland

Would that not imply that everyone else is using better/more drugs?

STB.

Kauto wrote: »

Cobalt has f all performance enhancing qualities.

Amazing the way its always the small man that gets caught. Its fairly obvious who in the sport is using drugs.

Cobalt increases the number of red blood cells which in turn leads to a greater ability to carry oxygen and maintain higher performance levels longer.

In humans, cobalt was used to treat people with kidney failure (until EPO was discovered).

It has been identified by horse racing authorities across the world as a performance enhancer, hence the various limits. They have been testing for it since April last year. They are not doing that for the good of their own health. They are doing it for the welfare of the horses and the integrity of the sport.

There have been bans in Australia, the US and Dubai over its use. Similar to the effects on humans, the side effects of its usage are heart related.

There was a trainer at Cheltenham last year banned for 3 years for using cobalt (on a raceday).

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/racing/anti-doping-chief-says-turf-club-testing-for-cobalt-since-last-year-1.3226859

I see Shark says that he was just over the limit, and that may be so, but I'm sure that his previous encounter over Diamond Dame testing positive for Lasix (apparently administered on the day of the race) didn't help.

irishgoat

Racing is bent as hell all over the world. From drugs to other devices. It has been exposed in the US how they inject all types of stuff into the horses legs, just to get them to race never mind winning as some of the horses are knackered. I saw an undercover documentary where the top US jockey Gary Stevens was reminiscing about using a buzzer/shocker on his horse near the line to get it up and nearly shocked himself. Seems this is the practice over there.

That cobalt stuff has only been tested for in the last couple of years here I think. Before then I can imagine the copious amounts being used.


Edit: Above I put 'seems this is the practice over there,' I meant to say 'was' not sure if it still is after the exposé

antietam

Kauto wrote: »

Cobalt has f all performance enhancing qualities.

Amazing the way its always the small man that gets caught. Its fairly obvious who in the sport is using drugs.

Great post.

RoyalAcademy2

Antietam, can you explain how these comments constitute a "great post"?; based on opinions that cobalt has no PE qualities and it being "fairly obvious" who the real culprits are?

I know this is a comments board but we could expect a little backup detail? Sounding off is too easy for the sake of a prejudice, no?

I'm no fan of the drug testing procedure but a little light rather than heat would be welcome. Who says cobalt has no effect and who are there druggies because apart from positive tests how can anyone know?

Henryhill2

In general it'll be the winners that are doping

They also have the greatest means and incentive to avoid detection

Kauto

RoyalAcademy2 wrote: »

Antietam, can you explain how these comments constitute a "great post"?; based on opinions that cobalt has no PE qualities and it being "fairly obvious" who the real culprits are?

I know this is a comments board but we could expect a little backup detail? Sounding off is too easy for the sake of a prejudice, no?

I'm no fan of the drug testing procedure but a little light rather than heat would be welcome. Who says cobalt has no effect and who are there druggies because apart from positive tests how can anyone know?

I think most people could name 9 or 10 trainers off the top of their heads who are at it. The top trainers are never going to be caught because it would bring down the industry.
The small time trainer is the sacrificial lamb.

I know of two trainers who have given up. Too expensive to dope and you have no chance without it.

Philip Rothwell could do with some Go Go juice 😂

Mostly Harmless

I would have a certain set of pink and green silks towards the top of my most likely to be doping list.

As others have said, nothing will ever be done about and no point in speculating either.

It is a shame that these days any exceptional sporting performance always has the question mark of potential doping hanging over it.

irish_major

Mostly Harmless wrote: »

I would have a certain set of pink and green silks towards the top of my most likely to be doping list.

As others have said, nothing will ever be done about and no point in speculating either.

It is a shame that these days any exceptional sporting performance always has the question mark of potential doping hanging over it.

That's a load of bollocks. Best horses, with the best trainer.

irish_major

Kauto wrote: »

I think most people could name 9 or 10 trainers off the top of their heads who are at it. The top trainers are never going to be caught because it would bring down the industry.
The small time trainer is the sacrificial lamb.

I know of two trainers who have given up. Too expensive to dope and you have no chance without it.

Philip Rothwell could do with some Go Go juice ��

That is just not true. They were just not good enough trainers if they weren't getting the results

Kauto

irish_major wrote: »

That is just not true. They were just not good enough trainers if they weren't getting the results

I can assure you it is true. Said trainers were small scale and wanted to stay that way. They trained a few winners every year.

As for best trainers having the best horses, yes that is true and if drugs were taken out of it they would still be on top but you simply have no chance if you are clean.

irish_major

Kauto wrote: »

I can assure you it is true. Said trainers were small scale and wanted to stay that way. They trained a few winners every year.

As for best trainers having the best horses, yes that is true and if drugs were taken out of it they would still be on top but you simply have no chance if you are clean.

Complete and utter nonsense.
Every placed runner in every race is drug tested.

Henryhill2

The major problem seems to be out of competition testing

You have the BHA coming over from England testing here.

Kauto

irish_major wrote: »

Complete and utter nonsense.
Every placed runner in every race is drug tested.

go back to bed ffs. Your a gas man. Must be great to live in your world. Lance Armstrong never tested positive either.

Always a step ahead of the testers.

Mostly Harmless

irish_major wrote: »

That's a load of bollocks. Best horses, with the best trainer.

Keep telling yourself that, everyone says similar about drug cheats at the time until they get exposed and then it's all "oh it was so obvious at the time, how did nobody figure it out sooner" (e.g. cycling, baseball, etc)

RoyalAcademy2

What this industry needs apparently is a whistleblower if the problems are as prevalent as suggested.

People virtually name and shame here with impunity without offering a shred of evidence. There are dozens and dozens of positive dope tests for the past decade yet only a handful of significant punishments. It does seem that most infringements are legitimate errors with approved medicine rather than unapproved administrations?

The IHRB dope tester says a recent proliferation of disqualifications only re-inforces her opinion that the game is clean here and its simply "naughtiness" rather than corruption that is at play. Ponder that if you will!

The drugs issue seems to swirl around like a mist, coming and going and enveloping people (the WPM vet, for example) but ultimately being burned off without any blame or adverse findings.

Was it significant that the Hughes/Fenton cases were initiated by the Dept of Ag rather than the then Turf Club which is a bastion of the leading breeders in the country?

Those here who are "certain" that there is doping might outline HOW it happens rather than WHO is doping. No "duirt bean lion go duirt bean lei" either please (or defamation!)

Kauto

RoyalAcademy2 wrote: »

What this industry needs apparently is a whistleblower if the problems are as prevalent as suggested.

People virtually name and shame here with impunity without offering a shred of evidence. There are dozens and dozens of positive dope tests for the past decade yet only a handful of significant punishments. It does seem that most infringements are legitimate errors with approved medicine rather than unapproved administrations?

The IHRB dope tester says a recent proliferation of disqualifications only re-inforces her opinion that the game is clean here and its simply "naughtiness" rather than corruption that is at play. Ponder that if you will!

The drugs issue seems to swirl around like a mist, coming and going and enveloping people (the WPM vet, for example) but ultimately being burned off without any blame or adverse findings.

Was it significant that the Hughes/Fenton cases were initiated by the Dept of Ag rather than the then Turf Club which is a bastion of the leading breeders in the country?

Those here who are "certain" that there is doping might outline HOW it happens rather than WHO is doping. No "duirt bean lion go duirt bean lei" either please (or defamation!)

That Vet case was laughable.

Anyways i'm certainly not going to be naming names here but suffice to say i have been told numerous times by people 'on the inside'.

As for the IHRB, do you really think they are going to dirty on their own doorstep re the drugs issue? Of course they wont. It would bring down the industry. If you are naive enough to think this is not wholesale in the Industry then good look to you.

Mostly Harmless

Part of the problem is there is a fairly big grey area between "medication" and outright doping these days.

Most (decent) trainers would be injecting joints etc, some be training on lasix etc, all needs to be out of the system by race day but is not breaking any rules per se.

"Proper doping" would generally take place at locations disconnected from the trainer (esp in case of bigger operations), as pointed out above the rules are very weakly enforced - it's a competitive game with a lot of unscrupulous characters, of course it goes on.

Don't think a Wes Ward 2yo ever failed any tests when winning at Royal Ascot either...

RoyalAcademy2

I don't know if its wholesale or not - but perhaps the closest we ever came to a discovery was the al-Zarooni case. Luckily for some, he's now with Luca Brasi sleeping with the fishes.

What is administered, by whom, where is it sourced, what impact does it have and is steroidal in nature that lasts in the system for weeks or months and is completely undetectable? Are there equine biological passports available that would pinpoint dramatic physiological changes? No-one clamouring for this.

Doping (sophisticated or otherwise) is widespread in all sports there's too much money at stake to tackle it thoroughly. The recent WADA capitulation on Russia is a case in point.

I'm just not exercised by it any more especially if "they're all at it". I can think of a handful of trainers who would be highly suspicious and who have experienced a big drop numerically in winners in recent years. There's more to it than the needle?

antietam

Auroras_encore wrote: »

Ha even drugs cant help the worst trainer in ireland

OMG, arguably the best post ever.

antietam

RoyalAcademy2 wrote: »

What this industry needs apparently is a whistleblower if the problems are as prevalent as suggested.

People virtually name and shame here with impunity without offering a shred of evidence. There are dozens and dozens of positive dope tests for the past decade yet only a handful of significant punishments. It does seem that most infringements are legitimate errors with approved medicine rather than unapproved administrations?

The IHRB dope tester says a recent proliferation of disqualifications only re-inforces her opinion that the game is clean here and its simply "naughtiness" rather than corruption that is at play. Ponder that if you will!

The drugs issue seems to swirl around like a mist, coming and going and enveloping people (the WPM vet, for example) but ultimately being burned off without any blame or adverse findings.

Was it significant that the Hughes/Fenton cases were initiated by the Dept of Ag rather than the then Turf Club which is a bastion of the leading breeders in the country?

Those here who are "certain" that there is doping might outline HOW it happens rather than WHO is doping. No "duirt bean lion go duirt bean lei" either please (or defamation!)

I got out of buying/racing greyhounds because ever[EVERY] dog that has got to a final[WORTH MONEY] is drugged to the max..I could hang vets tomorrow if I wanted.Horse racing is in another planet of drugs. Does anyone remember a plane full of equine drugs at Gatwick owned by Godolphin that the horrible Racing Post refused to write about.BHA have a serious problem with an Irish stable and they now visited out of season a top nh Irish trainer who wasn't happy about the testing of horses for Cheltenham subsequent non-runners.Who owns the HRI??

Kauto

antietam wrote: »

I got out of buying/racing greyhounds because ever[EVERY] dog that has got to a final[WORTH MONEY] is drugged to the max..I could hang vets tomorrow if I wanted.Horse racing is in another planet of drugs. Does anyone remember a plane full of equine drugs at Gatwick owned by Godolphin that the horrible Racing Post refused to write about.BHA have a serious problem with an Irish stable and they now visited out of season a top nh Irish trainer who wasn't happy about the testing of horses for Cheltenham subsequent non-runners.Who owns the HRI??

Ah now, Al Zarrooni went rouge and chartered a plan full of drugs for himself

Some people are so gullible.

Could name 20 trainers that there is no doubt are using the best of stuff between here and UK. The problem the small trainer has is getting a vet to play ball and the cost of the stuff is obscene.

I would go so far as to say there is no trainer in Ireland making money from training racehorses. Making money from selling horses yes bit not training.

STB.

Kauto wrote: »

making money from selling horses yes bit not training.

Well lets see if the P2P story that is going around will actually make it to the papers.....

tryfix

RoyalAcademy2 wrote: »

I don't know if its wholesale or not - but perhaps the closest we ever came to a discovery was the al-Zarooni case. Luckily for some, he's now with Luca Brasi sleeping with the fishes.

What is administered, by whom, where is it sourced, what impact does it have and is steroidal in nature that lasts in the system for weeks or months and is completely undetectable? Are there equine biological passports available that would pinpoint dramatic physiological changes? No-one clamouring for this.

Doping (sophisticated or otherwise) is widespread in all sports there's too much money at stake to tackle it thoroughly. The recent WADA capitulation on Russia is a case in point.

I'm just not exercised by it any more especially if "they're all at it". I can think of a handful of trainers who would be highly suspicious and who have experienced a big drop numerically in winners in recent years. There's more to it than the needle?

The targeting of Russia in the first place was very politically motivated, if the Russians were doping on an east-German level as was the accusation then they would have been winning all around them and breaking records to boot. I can't think of any such industrial scale success for the Russians. They must have been fairly crap at it.

However among the most actively outraged countries accusing the Russians of all sorts was the UK.

The UK which has been turning relative nobodies into world class athletes and which hired Mo Farah's highly dubious coach Salazar to "develop more world class distance athletes".

Look to the countries/stables which are punching above their weight for producing strangely brilliant performers against the weight of expectations that could be expected from the quantity of quality stock in their stable.


Once the Ben Johnson 100 metres had been discredited by the fact that 9 out of 10 runners in that field were drug takers ( including the supreme Carl Lewis who looked to be a supreme Natural Talent ) it was fairly obvious that Athletics is awash with drugs.

Joe_ Public

tryfix wrote: »

The targeting of Russia in the first place was very politically motivated, if the Russians were doping on an east-German level as was the accusation then they would have been winning all around them and breaking records to boot. I can't think of any such industrial scale success for the Russians. They must have been fairly crap at it.

However among the most actively outraged countries accusing the Russians of all sorts was the UK.

The UK which has been turning relative nobodies into world class athletes and which hired Mo Farah's highly dubious coach Salazar to "develop more world class distance athletes".

Look to the countries/stables which are punching above their weight for producing strangely brilliant performers against the weight of expectations that could be expected from the quantity of quality stock in their stable.


Once the Ben Johnson 100 metres had been discredited by the fact that 9 out of 10 runners in that field were drug takers ( including the supreme Carl Lewis who looked to be a supreme Natural Talent ) it was fairly obvious that Athletics is awash with drugs.

I can’t recall the East Germans, or any other country for that matter, having an actual doping laboratory at an actual Olympic Games. Maybe you can tell me differently.

tryfix

Joe_ Public wrote: »

I can’t recall the East Germans, or any other country for that matter, having an actual doping laboratory at an actual Olympic Games. Maybe you can tell me differently.

I'm not interested in whether the Russians were doping, because all powerful countries are doping in some form or other. My point about the Russians is that they have very little success to show for their doping efforts ( unlike the East-Germans) . So tell me who was beating them and how?

How do you consistently beat the dopers unless you are doping yourself?

Joe_ Public

tryfix wrote: »

I'm not interested in whether the Russians were doping, because all powerful countries are doping in some form or other. My point about the Russians is that they have very little success to show for their doping efforts ( unlike the East-Germans) . So tell me who was beating them and how?

How do you consistently beat the dopers unless you are doping yourself?

I’m not denying they are fair and legitimate questions. But for example Russia went from a low ranking winter Olympic nation to top of the pile in 2014. They dominated events like race walking and a lot of athletic events where the Africans didn’t have a monopoly which was less the case for the East Germans. The link in both cases is the state, everybody else may be doing it too, just not with the tacit approval and even blessing of the state. In the UK and USA they are actually desperate to catch the dopers, that’s the big difference.

How effective they are at that is the question and the big concern for racing I would suggest.