The crisis in human sports today, particularly track and baseball is
not necessarily the use of drugs during events. It is the use of
performance enhancing drugs during training to gain a competitive
advantage. The particular drugs are such things as steroids or designer
steroids such as THG and hormone derivatives such as Andro.
So you are saying if they have "cleared the system" then there should
be no problem? Well the organizations responsible for the above sports
in the US ( USATF and MLF) and the IOC don't fell that way and neither
does the US congress. So in some respects the AERC rule 13 is behind
the times when confronted with this type of threat. I suspect while it
might be a small problem in endurance riding - it is still there to
some extent with the potential to grow.
The current drug rule and testing procedures don't have to ability to
deal with this and this is a much greater threat than the use of short
term compounds such as bute (which they can detect just fine) and
supplements such as APF which are "morally illegal" but in the big
picture don't matter much.
By getting so "huffy" over such things as MSM, APF, DMG, etc., I
believe we are missing the forest because we keep banging into trees
looking for it. What we might have is the average honest rider who
wants only the best for his horse's health is vilified while someone
else who has developed an effective program using steroids for example
that will allow them to effectively strengthen a horse in a six month
period slowly but completely remove the horse from the drugs so they
are "not competing on performance enhancing drugs", come into a new
season - kick butt and turn a good profit for the horses for a hundred
grand over seas go get absolutely no attention. How's that for a runon
sentence. Our rules and testing procedures are totally inadequate to
detect that but that is the threat. And if it happens and comes to
light it would do irreparable damage to the reputation of the sport.
These new threats are new in sports - arising because of technology
developments in the "supplement industry" and large amounts of money
filtering into once amateur sports like track and field and with the
big megabuck contracts professional athletes get today. They weren't
around 10 or 12 years ago when the drug rule was formulated. But we
also have the insentive in endurance with the money in the sport for
"made horses" that can be put into training for races like we saw in
the UAE a month ago. Heaven help us if endurance ever becomes an
olympic sport - it might be the beginning of the end of our reputation.
Truman
PS: Sorry to be so pessimistic, but I've already seen the sport I love
dearly and spend 14 years of my life pursing and getting pretty close
to the top on blood, sweat, hard work and long hours - only to see it
today turn into a cesspool because of the use of performance enhancing
drugs. I sure would not like to see history repeat itself.
