The Racing Medication and Testing Consortium will, among other things, discuss proposals to phase out race-day medication use during its next meeting Aug. 4.
The RMTC, a group of 25 industry stakeholders, said earlier it would meet to follow up on information gleaned from an international race-day medication summit held in New York in June.
The RMTC soon after the summit formed committees to focus on the phase-out of race-day drugs; penalty guidelines for medication violations; stable area security and surveillance; and guidelines for the administration of race-day medication. The RMTC said the committees are made up of “a cross-section of industry stakeholders, including horsemen, industry executives, racetrack operators and directors of racing, regulators, and veterinarians.”
The Aug. 4 meeting, to be held in the Cincinnati, Ohio, metropolitan area, will come less than two weeks before The Jockey Club Round Table meeting in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., Aug. 14. A report on the future of the Thoroughbred racing industry will be discussed at that meeting.
“In April, when we announced that we would be co-hosting an international medication summit with our colleagues at the (American Association of Equine Practitioners) and (National Thoroughbred Racing Association), we noted that we hoped to begin a process that had no pre-determined outcome,” RMTC chairman Dr. Robert Lewis said in a July 13 statement. “As a follow-up to the summit, the RMTC has created several committees to develop the needed background information which will enable the full RMTC board to move expeditiously in developing specific recommendations relative to the various areas of focus identified at the summit.”
The New York summit for the most part dealt with the pros and cons of race-day medication use in the United States and foreign countries.