ARCI Panel Discusses How to Stop Cheating in Horse Racing

A panel believes keys include additional out-of-competition testing, investigators, and research.
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Increased out-of-competition drug testing, investing in additional investigators and research into emerging threats are the most effective ways to catch—and, more importantly, deter—cheating in horse racing.

That was the main take-home message from the drug-testing forum on opening day of the Association of Racing Commissioners International’s (ARCI) 83rd annual Conference on Equine Welfare and Racing Integrity, taking place at in Charleston, South Carolina.

The panel featured:

  • Scott Stanley, PhD, of the University of California, Davis, K.L. Maddy Equine Analytical Laboratory, which conducts that state’s horseracing testing;
  • Anthony Fontana, PhD, of Truesdail Laboratories, in Irvine, California;
  • Speaking via teleconference, George Maylin, DVM, PhD, the longtime director of the New York Equine Drug Testing and Research Laboratory, in Morrisville; and
  • Brice Cote, a former Standardbred driver and detective in New Jersey State Police’s racetrack unit who heads the integrity efforts at The Meadowlands, Tioga, and Vernon Downs harness tracks.

Even if the panelists expressed varying beliefs on the prevalence of rule violators, they all emphasized the importance of out-of-competition testing—taking samples from horses in between races—as a way to detect substances that don’t appear in traditional blood or urine tests from samples taken immediately after a race but still could have an impact on a horse’s performance

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