26 treated, 25 winners!!!

[fmhealth]

Holy moly!! What a coincidence. Forget about Lasix & Bute. That's so last year.

http://www.drf.com/news/illinois-racing-board-finds-26-corticosteroid-positives

[therussmeister]

They only tested the winners, except the one Grade III stakes race. And all the positives were way below the threshold of the standard test, and very likely too dilute to have any impact whatsoever on performance. The largest positive was about 1/4,700,000 of a gram. This the problem with these so-called super tests, they are likely to get people up-in-arms about nothing.

[VeryOldMan]

This part caught my eye: "All the positive tests revealed minute traces of a drug permitted to be used therapeutically but forbidden on race day."

Aren't minute traces consistent with it being used at some point before race day? I believe the long term health of the sport would be helped by a huge reduction in the use of medication, but I'm having trouble generating outrage at this one.

[tbwinner]

The problem with people having a conversation or argument about drug overages/usage in horses mainly occurs around the "is it performance enhancing?" question. Of course anything you stick in a horse is going to AFFECT performance, the real question should be how much. I'm no Vet but from my understanding, explanation by trainer/vet, as well as further research online, the levels of Predinosone as the overages have occurred (which are merely overages due to the fact of super-testing...This drug has been used in Illinois for YEARS) does NOT have an effect enhancing performance so much so that you're able to improve a horse 10 lengths overnight. That is probably impossible with any drug. It's like Lasix....Performance-enhancing? Sure, merely because it helps stop Bleeding!! Of course when a horse isn't bleeding they're going to perform better.

It's merely administrative due to unclear drug guidelines (The article itself says the ARCI doesn't publish withdrawal timelines for IL).

I had a horse test positive because of this and my trainer was fined. I was told the Vets may be fined too due to negligence but apparently that didn't happen as it all falls on trainer responsibility.

[tbwinner]

Talk about a misleading headline.

Aside from graded stakes, ONLY winners are tested. Please read the article before making a comment or statement like that.

My guess is 100s of these horses were treated with this medication prior to 48 hours out that would have tested positive, IF THEY WON!

[Tom]

Marcus bucking for a job at the Times? :rolleyes:

Dr. Steven Allday will be talking about this in hour 2 on Byk today.