HIWU weekly update.  There appears to be a rash of metformin positives and I wonder why a drug used to treat diabetes and also used in horses for that purpose in short term usage is showing up in drug tests.  I'll do some research when I get some time.

Here's the latest wall of shame.  Transparency is good for the sport.

https://paulickreport.com/news/the-biz/hiwu-weekly-update-michael-lauer-is-fifth-trainer-with-metformin-positive-since-may-22/

Ray knows how to put a team together to display the violations, Its apparent don't try to snow

the Snowman don't you think !

This guy and others like this violation. Shot his win percentage down. 

• Trainer Milton Pineda – seven runners have now tested positive for the vasodilator diisopropylamine
  • Wegonahaveagoodtime won a $12,500 claiming race at Los Alamitos on July 4, after which he tested positive.
  • Keep Your Coil won a $25,000 claiming race at Los Alamitos on July 2, after which she tested positive.
  • Catbernay won a $10,000 claiming race at Los Alamitos on July 1, after which he tested positive.
  • Chollima won an $8,000 claiming race at Los Alamitos on June 23, after which she tested positive, and has since finished second in a $12,500 claiming race
  • Big Splash won a $16,000 waiver claiming event at Santa Anita on June 10, after which he tested positive. Big Splash has since finished third in an allowance optional claiming race at Los Alamitos on June 24.
  • Flatterwithjewels finished second in a $12,500 claiming race at Santa Anita on June 9 and was claimed by Flurry Racing Stables and trainer Phil D'Amato. The claim will be voided under HISA rules.
  • Bella Renella won a $20,000 claiming race at Santa Anita on June 2, after which she tested positive. The 6-year-old mare has since won a starter optional claiming race at Santa Anita on June 18.

Ray is the best at what he does and that includes getting very good people to work with him.

Milton Pineda is a animal abuser.  He's putting a vasodilator on top of the blast of lasix his horses are getting.  

Milton should be kept away from horses and if he wants to work at the track let him park cars.

Not in the HISA realm but maybe it should be:

https://paulickreport.com/news/the-biz/when-it-comes-to-riding-fouls-what-are-the-rules-anyway/

This is like if the strike zone is called differently between Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park, or if the definition of holding is different at Lambeau Field vs Arrowhead Stadium.  

The rules of baseball or football don't change if you change the venue. So why is interference/careless riding different in one state over another? 

There should be one set of rules of riding in the manner of the British Horseracing Authority.  Clear definitions.  Clear penalties. 

HISA is involved in whipping because it has to do with horse welfare.  Could they expand the definition of horse welfare?  I don't know.  

I agree with you one set of rules should be in force, I just don't see a clear path to get it done.  The NTRA could publish uniform rules of riding but they have no regulatory power.  Therefore, it would still be up to individual jurisdictions.

At least, if there were only one set of rules, it would then be a matter of interpretation.  For example, there is one strike zone in baseball but different umpires see that strike zone differently.  

SameSteve G said...

There appears to be a rash of metformin positives and I wonder why a drug used to treat diabetes and also used in horses for that purpose in short term usage is showing up in drug tests.  I'll do some research when I get some time.

As I understand it, it's used for metabolic disorders, i.e. insulin resistance.   I only know about metabolic disorders in humans, in which exercise / getting active is one of the things that helps, as is not eating a lot of sugar or starches. 

I guess I am wondering why SO MANY horses, esp. young ones, would have a metabolic disorder?   EMS is usually obvious cuz the horse is kinda.......well......."fat".  They have obvious fat deposits.   Seems odd that many racehorses who are athletes would have EMS?  Nor are TBs considered high risk breeds from my reading?

 

https://ceh.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/health-topics/equine-metabolic-syndrome#:~:text=Many%20horses%20respond%20well%20to,no%20%E2%80%9Ccure%E2%80%9D%20for%20EMS.

Thanks for the follow up, WT.  What I read recently and forgot to post here is that at least one of the trainers who was provisionally suspended has diabetes so maybe it's as simple as that.

Although I did read elsewhere that in humans, metformin delays the onset of fatigue in a measurable way.

I wonder if these trainers have discovered that it also delays fatigue in horses which would be a good way to cheat.

Metformin is NOT on the common controlled medications for horses on the HIWU list so I think that means healthy racehorses should not receive it and if they are receiving it they are not healthy to race.

SameSteve G said...

What I read recently and forgot to post here is that at least one of the trainers who was provisionally suspended has diabetes so maybe it's as simple as that.

So how would that show up in a horse's blood profile, or are we back to "my groom had eaten a poppyseed bun for breakfast" or "my groom pissed in the hay and my horse ate some".  

If I lived w/someone who had to take a med and we held hands, would my blood test show up with his medications?  I doubt it.   

Is the trainer french-kissing the horse while still having traces of metformin pill inside their mouth?  And it would have to be many trainers, at least as many as have showed metformin positives in their horses? 

I guess I want to know how ENOUGH metformin gets into the horses bloodstream thru simple handling ---- simple handling meaning w/out "getting intimate" with the horse in some manner?   LOL   

Now, here is a piece done by Charlestown, who lets face it, is not a premier track.  This reads to me like a bunch of horsemen from HPBA and some vets in an anti-HISA state trying to prove all this tremendous stall contamination:  

While reading I had to ask myself, how come trainers like Graham Motion don't have tons and tons of "accidental and/or environmental contamination"  in their barns?  IMHO it's because there is no such thing.  Even if you held a pill in your sweaty palm, swallowed it, there's not enough powder to contaminate a horse's bloodstream that they would pull a positive over the limit. 

It's like a 200 lb guy saying "I got a DUI because I blew a .09 BAC after I kissed my girlfriend, who had drank a beer."    This is all getting ridiculous and the cheaters are getting.........desperate.  

https://nationalhbpa.com/an-in-depth-look-at-stall-contamination/

Wintertrian said:

So how would that show up in a horse's blood profile, or are we back to "my groom had eaten a poppyseed bun for breakfast" or "my groom pissed in the hay and my horse ate some".  

Hahaha.  The reason I brought up contamination is because in the case I was talking about, the attorney for Jonathan Wong [the trainer] is using the contamination defense.  Not because I bought it as an excuse.

In any case, the testing is super sensitive as it should be.  The reason I do not buy the contamination excuse, which is legion in the US, is because one doesn't find the excuse being used so much, if at all, in the international jurisdictions not awash with drugs, both equine and human.  The entire process is cleaner and the execution is cleaner.

On the NHPBA - I discount everything they say or do about medications because their agenda is clear as bell.  Business as usual.  Look where business as usual has gotten us.

Pucker Up Buttercup !   WWHK do!