Out-of-competition testing in Australia was introduced last October. Murrihy said early Monday three teams of stewards, veterinarians and racecourse detectives besieged the Randwick stables to collect urine and blood samples from horses slated to compete in the course's autumn carnival. He said the goal of the raid was to assure horsemen illegal drug use will not be tolerated. "We want to show we are serious about out-of-competition testing for performance enhancing drugs such as EPO and peptide hormones," Murrihy said. "We can look forward to a level playing field over the Easter weekend races."
A massive out-of-competition drug-testing raid was conducted at Randwick racecourse Monday morning as 30 trainers had blood samples taken from horses in their stable.The Australian Racing Forensic Laboratory (ARFL) Racing tested the samples for performance-enhancing drugs, including EPO and peptide hormone. New South Wales chairman of stewards Ray Murrihy said the ARFL reported Tuesday morning every sample came back clean."The ARFL has just confirmed that all samples taken yesterday have been returned as negative," Murrihy told the Australian Associated Press. "The results are very pleasing from an industry point of view."
