MD & DE rule Glaucine positives contamination

“A lot of people were caught unaware through no fault of their own,” commissioner Tom Winebrener said during the meeting, which was held via conference call.

“The bottom line is we want to do this the right way,” added Commission chair John McDaniel.

The move followed a similar decision made June 18 by the Delaware Thoroughbred Racing Commission (DTRC). There, stewards ruled that Brooks Lass, trained by Scott Lake, and Michaels Butterfly, trained by Gina Rosenthal, would retain their May 25 and May 23 victories, respectively.

The decision will cheer the nine trainers who had glaucine positives in Maryland, whom the Commission has not publicly named.

The issue arose April 14, according to Commission executive director Mike Hopkins, when Truesdail Laboratories, which does the testing in both Maryland and Delaware, found three samples positive for glaucine. One of those samples came from Laurel Park, while the other two were from Rosecroft, which hosts harness racing.

Several more positives followed shortly thereafter, ultimately affecting nine trainers and prompting the Commission and Truesdail to work “hand in hand,” Hopkins said, to investigate further.

That investigation led to the conclusion that when glaucine, an alkaloid naturally occurring in the tulip poplar tree, is found along with one of three other alkaloids — protopine, asimilobine, and liriodenine – “it is more likely than not that an environmental contamination was the basis for its ingestion,” the Delaware Thoroughbred Racing Commission stewards wrote in their June 18 ruling, which was based on the research Truesdail had conducted as a result of the Maryland cases.