Widespread illegal drugs persist?

Yonkers, NY — On Jan. 8, the Harness Racing Medication Collaborative (HRMC) members Joe Faraldo, Chair, Mark Lowe, Vice Chair USTA, Dr. Kenneth McKeever, Dr. Thomas Tobin, Dr. Andy Roberts, Dr. Clara Fenger and Dr. Richard Balmer met along with Mike Tanner, USTA Executive V.P.

An important topic of discussion which has plagued our industry has been the inability to detect unknown substances believed to be used in racing. Currently, performance enhancing drugs are rarely identified because most testing techniques only identify known, listed drugs.

HRMC, within its mission to advance drug testing, including setting national scientifically supported thresholds in harness racing, is pleased to endorse and support the use of an ion mobility mass spectrometer, which will be the first in use in harness racing, at the New York State Drug Testing and Research Lab. New York State still controls equine drug testing in harness racing, apart from New York Thoroughbreds under the HISA labs.

Hopefully, this machine and any future AI technology will prove to be a new and valuable tool for use in harness racing, after the New York lab testing of the new technology is completed. The HRMC committee members overwhelmingly endorsed this newest innovation as a new tool able to identify sophisticated cheaters and eliminate them from New York harness racing.

New York will be the only state to test this technology in equine drug testing identification. If the machine performs as promised, it is presumed that it will be employed in other states where racing is conducted and apply to all harness racing.

Allegations of widespread illegal drug use in horse racing persists with the identity of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) and is seldom reported. The primary reason there are so few positive findings is that most laboratories test for only known listed drugs. This is called targeted testing.

Recent developments in drug testing allows testing for thousands of drugs in a given sample without knowledge of their identity. This is called untargeted testing. This is what horse racing needs.

The ion mobility mass spectrometer reportedly can detect thousands of drugs and chemicals that are not detected using conventional testing methods currently in use in equine testing laboratories. The machine was used to detect 40 Kratom Alkaloids to demonstrate its fitness for purpose use in equine drug testing.

The recent Federal HISA/HIWU program that was established to stop illegal doping has not reported any new PEDs as drug testing under federal mandates has not improved over its state counterparts.

Of the thousands of potential PEDs available, ARCI lists 500, TOBA 196 and HIWU 1,280. Clearly, targeted drug testing is only the tip of the iceberg and has not deterred alleged PED use. Testing for other drugs that may be present is called untargeted testing with the objective to test for all possible drugs. The testing technology currently used in equine drug testing cannot accomplish this. Ion mobility mass spectrometry is a recent development that can improve the scope and sensitivity of drug testing and is ideally suited to untargeted drug testing.

 From the Harness Racing Medication Collaborative