Last week trainer Rick Dutrow appealed a 15-day suspension from Churchill Downs, a penalty given to the trainer after his horse Salute the Count was found to have ran the Aegon Turf Sprint with an amount of clenbuterol exceeding the limit allowed at Churchill. Having the trainer of this year's Triple Crown hopeful suspended for drug violations in the sport is certainly bad for horse racing's image, and it has certainly helped to refuel the Dutrow-haters. And before you know it, Steve Asmussen--trainer of the reigning Horse of the Year--gets a drug violation too. Both of these guys have been suspended before, so everyone is dumbfounded or even outraged--how can these trainers make the same mistake again?

The trainers insist they weren't trying to cheat, and the reports of what happened in each of their cases do support their assertions that honest mistakes may have been made.

Allowable amounts of clenbuterol vary from state to state, as does the number of days before a race that a trainer is allowed to administer a medication to his horse. I can see how Dutrow could make the mistake of medicating his horse too close to the Turf race, thereby causing the overage. Did he have too much on his mind? The Kentucky Derby was the next day.

Asmussen's barn is fighting a hydroxylidocaine positive in Timber Trick who raced at Lone Star Park on May 10. Hydroxlidocane is a prohibited substance in racing, and is a metabolite of lidocaine. The anesthetic lidocaine is available in many over-the-counter products, including anti-itch creams like Lanacane, and could have contaminated Asmussen's horse by accident if any trace of it was in his environment. Unfortunately for Asmussen, the Texas Racing Commission did not quantify the amount they found in Timber Trick. They also denied the trainer's request for a split sample to be tested by another lab at the Louisiana State University.

The point of having the amount of the drug quantified is to prove if it was either a small amount that contaminated the horse through his environment, or if it was such an adequate amount that would have to be deliberately administered to the horse.

If Dutrow had an innocent brain-fart, it led him to make a huge mistake that would not only tarnish his professional reputation, but cost the horse's connections what the horse won in the race from it's second-place finish. Dutrow absolutely cannot let himself or his team make mistakes like this, and maybe suffering the penalties is what it takes to keep some organizations straight. In Asmussen's case, perhaps these barns and trainers could take extreme precautions to make sure their horse won't be contaminated, but look what a bigger problem there is when the racing authorities punish trainers after extremely biased test results or conclusions.

Whatever the nature of what he did, Dutrow did something really stupid, and he knows it. From what Big Brown's IEAH Stables said afterward, it could have cost Dutrow all of the horses he trains for IEAH. But none of the horses he trains for IEAH, including the winners of about 200 races, have tested positive for drug violations. IEAH believes Dutrow made an honest mistake in dosing the horse too close to the race at Churchill, leaving an excessive amount of the otherwise allowed substance in the horse.

The Texas Racing Commission may have done something stupid too, effectively identifying Steve Asmussen as a cheater when their test results may not actually prove there was deliberate cheating taking place.

But what takes the biggest toll is not the trainers' pocketbooks after their winnings are taken back. Drug violations defame horse racing's integrity, putting a spotlight on cheating, and worst of all they outrage and alienate horse racing's fans.

We are ordinarily proud of our sport and our heroes, from the Thoroughbreds to the jockeys and trainers. We are fed up with drug violations reminding us that we need to explain and defend horse racing. After the harsh criticisms, misinformation and agenda-fueled anti-horse-racing rhetoric in the media following Eight Belles' fatal accident in the Kentucky Derby, we can no longer tolerate things that make horse racing look bad. The NTRA's Alex Waldrop appeared on the Preakness Stakes broadcast, confirming that changes were going to be made, and steroids will not be allowed at all in horse racing next year. The word "steroids" has such a negative connotation that horse racing is moving to disassociate itself with all of them.

Medication became allowable in horse racing in the 1970's. Meds allowed in horse racing are for therapeutic purposes, and performance-enhancing steroids are not allowed. Horse racing has always had the strictest drug rules in sports. But, rules and penalties have never been enough to guarantee to horse racing fans that they could always be proud of their heroes. The penalties haven't been strong enough to deter intent cheaters, and the system to identify drug violations is flawed, capable of condemning trainers who's horses may have been contaminated rather than deliberately dosed to cheat.

Deliberate contamination by a malevolent third-party is suspected in the June 2008 drug positive for a horse trained by Larry Jones at Delaware Park. The horse's owner, Jim Squires of Two Bucks Stable, wanted to be the first to report the clenbuterol violation, and called it "highly suspicious", noting that it was Larry Jones' first drug violation in 25 years of training horses, and it occured shortly before congressional hearings on drugs in racing were about to begin.

Squires said the clenbuterol incident "reeks of a deliberate effort to impugn our credibility on the subject of drugs and damage the reputation of a highly successful trainer who has been unfairly and mistakenly blamed by a few critics outside the industry for the death of Eight Belles, whose autopsy tested free of illegal substances. In the controversy following the death of his Kentucky Derby entry Eight Belles, Larry Jones and I have both been prominent in the media voicing our support for the banning of steroids in the Thoroughbred industry and of more vigorous, uniform regulation of therapeutic drugs such as Clenbuterol, which can have steroidal effects."

The horse trained by Jones, Stones River, has previously been administered a legal dose of celenbuterol in a number of days before a race that would sufficiently clear the medication from the horse's system before the race. Owner and breeder Jim Squires himself illustrated that "Delaware has a 72-hour clearance rule concerning Clenbuterol, which means if given prior to that interval it should have cleared the horse’s system by race time. Many successful trainers, including Jones, routinely use Clenbuterol or some derivative to treat respiratory illness or clear a horse’s lungs before a work or before a race. Some horses don’t clear it as fast as others. Stones River does not appear to be one of those. He has always tested clean in the past, most recently when he broke his maiden May 10 at Delaware at the same distance in similar time and fashion as he did June 10…. Larry Jones has assured us that to his knowledge Stones River has never received Clenbuterol any closer to race time than 96 hours. That he has suddenly tested high more likely reflects the need for more security around track backsides and testing."

Accusations of sabotage are rare, but accidental contamination is a common argument in appeals by trainers who have been slapped with drug violation suspensions. Obviously it can be a convenient argument for determined cheaters, but in other cases trainers have simply been told that they are responsible for their horses, period. In early 2007, repeat Trainer of the Year Todd Pletcher served a suspension for a medication violation which occured at Saratoga in 2006, after repeated appeals where he insisted that he did not know how one of his horse's came in contact with a banned anesthetic. New York racing authorities would not yield, citing these rules: "A trainer shall be responsible at all times for the condition of all horses trained by him... The trainer shall be held responsible for any positive test unless he can show by substantial evidence that neither he nor any employee nor agent was responsible for the administration of the drug or other restricted substance. Every trainer must guard each horse trained by him in such manner and for such period of time prior to racing the horse so as to prevent any person, whether or not employed by or connected with the owner or trainer, from administering any drug or other restricted substance to such horse contrary to this Part."

In 2006 Steve Asmussen served a six-month suspension for two seperate violations at different race courses. Dutrow has had a number of different violations since the 70's. If the answer to putting an end to drug violations in horse racing is banning everything, leaving any amount of any drug unacceptable, there are still two big problems that must be resolved: the penalties must be the stiffest possible, and the testing has to prove without a doubt that the cheating was deliberate--not accidental--before those penalties are administered.

Tags: Horse Racing Horseracing Dutrow Asmussen 2008

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