How Hong Kong’s On-Track Pharmacies Work

Christopher M. Riggs, VSc, PhD, DEO, Dipl. ECVS, MRCVS, describes the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s on-track pharmacies and how they work.
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Last week Frank Stronach, chairman and founder of The Stronach Group, proposed introducing an on-track pharmacy as part of a 10-point plan to control racehorse medication use and abuse at his six racetracks—Santa Anita Park and Golden Gate Fields in California, Gulfstream Park in Florida, Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park in Maryland, and Portland Meadows in Oregon. If implemented, racetrack veterinarians would be prohibited from bringing medications onto those racetrack properties and would be required to obtain any medication needed to treat their clients' horses through the on-track pharmacy. Detailed records about what the horses are receiving would be kept and subject to periodic review.

Tracking medication use in this matter is routine at The Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC). The Blood-Horse editorial director Eric Mitchell contacted the HKJC recently about how the on-track pharmacy system works and got answers from Christopher M. Riggs, VSc, PhD, DEO, Dipl. ECVS, MRCVS, HKJC's head of veterinary clinical services.


BloodHorse.com: Does The Hong Kong Jockey Club operate a pharmacy at each racetrack?

Christopher Riggs, VSc, PhD, DEO, Dipl. ECVS, MRCVS: "The HKJC ensures provision of veterinary care to all horses in Hong Kong through the Department of Veterinary Clinical Services (DVCS). Vets within the DVCS, who are all employees of the HKJC, provide sole care for all horses in Hong Kong. The DVCS operates from an equine hospital at the Sha Tin racing complex, where all racehorses are stabled. There is a tightly controlled, secure pharmacy within the equine hospital, which is subject to strict operating protocols, based on safe, secure principles. Adherence to these protocols is regularly and independently monitored by the club's audit department. Only drugs and supplements supplied by the DVCS pharmacy can be used on HKJC horses. There are small, satellite vet clinics at the Happy Valley Racecourse (which is only functional at race meetings), in quarantine, at the 'Olympic Stables' (a stable unit at Sha Tin that is physically separated from the main stable complex), and at the stables where retired racehorses are retrained for equestrian use. Each of these clinics maintains small drug stores that are subunits of the main pharmacy and are subject to the same control measures

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Written by:

Eric Mitchell is a Editorial Director and Editor-in-Chief The Blood-Horse magazine.

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