Committee to Look at California Medication Thresholds

The National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association Medication Committee will review California research that helped develop thresholds for two therapeutic medications during its meeting July 14 in Bloomington, Minn., as part of the National HBPA summer convention.

In a release, committee chairman Kent Stirling, executive director of the Florida HPBA, said Dr. Scott Stanley, associate professor at the University of California-Davis and director of the Kenneth L. Maddy Equine Analytical Chemistry Laboratory, will present the findings for flunixin and ketoprofen. Regulatory thresholds were developed for the drugs based on the study.

"In developing these thresholds, more than a dozen Thoroughbred horses were used that were actually in training in California, thus insuring a realistic racing environment as opposed to much recent and past research that has been performed on just a few treadmill or sedentary horses," Stirling said.

Stirling said the results "seem to indicate most thresholds should be established in the California manner." He said the national Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, which established model rules and policies for United States racing jurisdictions, is "on the verge of using some of these California-based thresholds because of the good scientific work accomplished here."

Dr. Thomas Tobin from the University of Kentucky Gluck Equine Research Center will discuss the recent disqualification of Brass Hat from the group I Dubai World Cup during the committee meeting. The connections of Brass Hat, who finished second in the race, lost $1.2 million because officials called a positive for methyl prednisoline acetate (depo-medrol). An injection was given 28 days before the race; the listed withdrawal time was 23 days, though the Emirates Racing Association has no threshold for depo-medrol.

The National HBPA summer convention begins July 13 and ends July 16 with a morning board of directors meeting. The meeting is being held in conjunction with the July 15 Claiming Crown at Canterbury Park in nearby Shakopee.