National HBPA Conference Day 3 Recap: Sharks and No-Effect Thresholds

The 2024 Kent Stirling Memorial Medication panel. From left: Dr. Clara Fenger, Dr. Tom Tobin, Dr. Rob Holland and trainer Ron Moquett. Photo by Denis Blake/NHBPA What could sharks possibly have to do with a presentation at the National HBPA Conference at Prairie Meadows? Well, just in time for Friday’s Kent Stirling Memorial [...]

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The 2024 Kent Stirling Memorial Medication panel. From left: Dr. Clara Fenger, Dr. Tom Tobin, Dr. Rob Holland and trainer Ron Moquett. Photo by Denis Blake/NHBPA

What could sharks possibly have to do with a presentation at the National HBPA Conference at Prairie Meadows?

Well, just in time for Friday’s Kent Stirling Memorial Medication Panel, scientists reported finding cocaine in Brazilian sharpnose sharks off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. Not in just one, but all 13 sharks tested showed the presence of cocaine and a metabolite, according to the study published in Science of the Total Environment.

Dr. Clara Fenger is the practicing equine veterinarian and researcher who led the panel titled “Establishing No-Effect Thresholds and the Importance for the Industry.” She used the cocaine sharks to illustrate the prevalence of environmental contamination in today’s world.

Drawing back the relevance of sharks to Iowa and other racing jurisdictions, Fenger cited the Horseracing Integrity & Safety Authority’s enabling legislation that HISA-covered horses “should compete only when they are free from the influence of medications …” (her emphasis added).

Fenger’s point: Testing many substances to limit of detection – if the lab can find it, it’s a violation, no matter how tiny the amount and whether it impacts the horse’s performance or not – actually goes against the federal law that set up the HISA corporation. She said HISA has justified not having more threshold levels by saying that certain substances have no business being in a racehorse at any level.

“Those certain substances have no business in a shark at any level, either,” Fenger said.

Also on the panel were Dr. Thomas Tobin, the world-renowned researcher and pioneer in equine testing, and Dr. Rob Holland, another equine practitioner who globally consults on infectious diseases. The discussion also featured horse trainer Ron Moquett, who shared his own expensive story on environmental transfer.

All four made the case that horse racing must adopt no-effect thresholds in racehorse testing for substances that are readily present in the environment. Such policy requires science-based testing levels, below which any trace level findings are disregarded because they have no pharmacological effect on a horse. Tobin for years has been using the term “irrelevant” findings.

The National HBPA and its CEO Eric Hamelback have been the leading advocates for no-effect thresholds, saying it is unfair to sanction trainers and penalize their owners when horses are disqualified from purse money for the presence of a tiny amount of a substance they couldn’t have prevented. The National HBPA currently has a petition before the Federal Trade Commission asking the federal agency, which is tasked with overseeing HISA, to enact such policies.

Tobin has been working on “no-effect” thresholds since 1994. That work includes this year publishing documentation and recommendation of a methamphetamine threshold of 1 nanogram per milliliter of plasma. He referenced research published in 2019 that showed blood levels testing as high as 88.4 ng/mL with no signs of neuron-stimulation or cardio effect. A coalition of researchers that includes Tobin and Fenger has published research recommending testing thresholds for a dozen substances that have been showing up in horses seemingly through environmental or human transfer.

As an example: One recommendation awaiting publication is for the heavily prescribed painkiller Tramadol, with Tobin observing a Kentucky trainer served a suspension for a finding of less than 3 ng/mL of urine.

“There was absolutely no possibility of pharmacological effect,” Tobin said. “I have proposed that anything below 50 nanograms per mL of Tramadol as a metabolite in urine should not be considered of any significance.”

Holland said every horse that races could potentially pick up trace levels of a prohibited substance from 20 to 30 different — and routine — contact points. Those might include not just the trainer or groom but a van driver, a horse drinking out of another horse’s water bucket in the test barn, the prior horse in that stall in the receiving barn, pony riders and outriders, the test-barn employee known as the “pee-catcher”, veterinarians and many others. Even dogs and cats around a barn.

Holland also said as part of an investigation into the risks of environmental contamination, they swabbed 12 stalls at a track that has a large yearling sale and all 12 tested for Dexamethasone and Acepromazine, which are not allowed to be in a horse’s system for a race. He said one of the swabs was high enough that it would have triggered an adverse finding in a racehorse. Even with thorough cleaning, he said the honeycomb design of the stall floor mats made it impossible to eliminate all the dirt.

“That stall should be subject to a $25,000 fine and two years where you can’t compete,” Moquett joked, “if they treated the racetracks like they treat the trainers.”

Added Holland: “That’s why we have to explain these things to people: There are things that are out of your control as a trainer. Like the stall they assign to you. You clean it the best you can, but sometimes you’re still going to have a problem. And this is what the data is showing.”

He said the diabetes medication Metformin, for which HIWU has called a number of adverse findings, lends itself to environmental transfer. Metformin is given daily to humans in large doses and is excreted in its original form. That’s a problem given a backstretch habit of humans urinating in a stall when a bathroom isn’t handy, he said.

“The fact that 20 to 30 individual contacts could occur, and that’s the No. 3 drug in the world to treat humans, your odds of getting urine environmental transfer are getting higher and higher with Metformin,” Holland said. “I give a lot of tracks credit. They saw there weren’t enough bathrooms so they put Port-A-Potties everywhere. The problem with Port-A-Potties is how do you wash your hands?”

Holland also is involved in a project testing the water at racetracks. “Metformin, caffeine, codeine, Tramadol — many of these medications at low levels are coming out of your water sources, because they can’t get it out of the treatment plant areas,” he said. “We’re building a database for this. It could have added meaning. If (your horse) came in contact with Metformin from an individual but you’re also drinking low-levels in your water, that could be enough to get you over the threshold level for a test in a racing situation.”

Moquett, who is on HISA’s Horsemen’s Advisory Group, learned the hard way how easy it can be for a horse to pick up a substance banned for racing.

He was cited in November by the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit (HIWU) for his horse Speed Bias having a post-test finding for a local anesthetic. Through spending a lot of money and effort, Moquett was ultimately held blameless, though the horse remained disqualified from purse money. What happened is that Moquett had a different horse castrated in a stall nine days earlier, with the veterinarian using the same anesthetic to inject the testicles — all duly reported to HISA — before Speed Bias shipped in to run out of the same stall.

Fortunately for Moquett, the track’s barn video documented the effort the trainer’s crew underwent to strip, clean and sanitize the stall — on three separate occasions, he said.

Moquett said his big concern is the erosion of confidence in the sport by treating irrelevant levels of substances common in the environment as major rule violations.

“We’re trying to explain to the people in charge to set levels, to where you’re not catching and accusing for things that have no effect on racing,” he said.

Moquett stressed that trainers also must make it clear to employees that “it’s not OK to urinate in the stalls. It’s not OK to take your Red Bull in (the stall) with you. It’s not OK to put your coffee cup in a feed tub…. I hate to say this, but if there’s someone on Metformin for blood pressure (working for him or asking about a job), I’m going to have to try to find someone who may not be.”

Fenger praised the National HBPA and its affiliates for providing funding for the threshold studies. Moquett encouraged HBPA affiliates to keep the money coming, saying, “Probably more than anything going on today, the work they’re doing has the biggest effect on the outcome of our sport.”

Owner-breeder Allen Poindexter: National HBPA Living Legend

Also Friday: During the National HBPA awards luncheon, Iowa HBPA executive director Jon Moss interviewed owner-breeder Allen Poindexter for the National HBPA’s Living Legend series.

Poindexter’s runners include multiple stakes-winning horses at Prairie Meadows and other tracks across the country, with his stable earnings exceeding $18 million. His Iowa-bred filly Flat Out Speed won the Grade 3 Iowa Oaks in 2020. Poindexter was inducted into the Prairie Meadows Hall of Fame in 2022.

It’s a long way from growing up so poor, as one of eight children with the five boys in one room, that Poindexter said he slept in a closet until he was 18. How did he get into horse racing? Moss asked.

“I was a union pipe fitter and we went on strike,” he said. “So I went to Helena, Ark., to work on the Mississippi at a refinery. The weekend came, and my foreman on the project said he was going to Oaklawn Park for the horse races. “I said, ‘I’ve never been to the horse races.’ He said, ‘You’ll love. It.’ So I drove from Helena to Springfield, Mo., to pick up my wife, then drove five hours back to Oaklawn. I absolutely loved it. Could not get enough. Of course, being 22 years old and working as a pipe fitter, no money to buy horses. But I said, ‘Someday, I’m going own a racehorse.’”

In 1991, Poindexter started a plumbing, heating and air-conditioning business called Allen’s Mechanical.

“It was very successful from the start,” he said. “So, I was able to buy a horse out of the field, and his name was No Tomorrow. He had cockleburs in his mane and tail. I paid $10,000 for him. He probably was a $2,000 horse. I took him to Oaklawn and got Scooter Dickey to be my trainer. We ran him the first time for $8,000 claiming. He went wire to wire with Pat Day aboard. So I was hooked. We ran him back for $16,000 claiming. He goes wire to wire once again. So, now I’m really hooked.”

Advice to horsemen regarding purse accounts: Trust but verify

The presentation called “Show Me The Money” featured Gunner LaCour, president of CHRIMS Inc., which specializes in pari-mutuel distributions, settlements, editing and reporting and the only independent provider of settlements in the United States. LaCour, who started the company in California with the Thoroughbred Owners of California as a stakeholder, said that whether horsemen’s groups opt to use his non-profit or another company, they should enlist a company that can provide daily audits to ensure horsemen are getting all the purse money to which they are entitled in an increasing complicated environment.

LaCour said it’s important for horsemen to know all their revenue streams and every aspect of those streams — or they risk literally leaving money on the table. He said roadblocks to achieving that knowledge can be lack of data, relying on a racing commission, alternative gaming revenue can be tougher to determine, lack of time and resources and simply long-standing relationships with tracks might make such accounting seem unnecessary.

“All of these can lead to potential of distribution discrepancies, even if there is no intent,” he said. “Trust but verify. You can have these great relationships with these tracks… or maybe just get rid of the first two words, just verify. Make sure your horsemen are getting everything they’re entitled to… Be proactive, instead of reactive. Know the data. If you understand your data, that’s power. Make sure you’re staying on top of it.”

Other presentations Friday included National HBPA sponsor Steve Andersen with Equine Equipment, which offers dedicated manufacturers’ incentives to the horse world on farm equipment, mowers, paint and more. The luncheon presentations by benefit providers included Pointe Financial CEO Rischi Sharma on innovative ways to to provide cost-effective benefits to retain employees; Minnesota HBPA board member Claudia Gobble, a human-resources professional in multiple industries and a lifelong racing participant, and Dr. Reid McLellen, founder of the Groom Elite horsemen’s education program.

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