This raises more questions than it answers. First how many horses were
tested by the AERC and the state of CA as their agent? I am not sure
either the FEI or AERC is testing a sufficient number of horses to
amount to a "hill of beans." Unless testing has significantly increased
the AERC has a significant bank account in testing fund - why isn't
that money being spent to perform testing?
It's pretty easy to determine the probablility of detecting drugs if
they exist at a given rate once the number of test is know. I suspect
that the testing rate is insufficient to catch a fairly high drug use
rate with any confidence. But without the numbers - including CA its
not possible to run the numbrs.
The AERC had over 20,000 starts last year - how many did the FEI have?
Until those facts are provided it is very difficult to give your claims
much weight. I suspect when push comes to shove the FEI has a much more
robust program which is based on the current best science not some knee
jerk "zero tolerance" concept which may or may not withstand legal
test.
The FEI has been out front investigating horse deaths - I suspect they
are out front on the drug issue.
You all might be interested in exactly how
the FEI handles the situation. The following is excerpted from their
latest news letter:
5.
Some facts about medication control in the FEI.
SAMPLING - up to 2000 samples are collected per year for testing; about
1300 of these are from Europe (FEI Groups 1 and 2) and the remainder
from events in the rest of the world. Blood and urine samples are
collected by an experienced vet who follows a careful protocol to
ensure that no tampering of the samples can occur.
LABORATORY ANALYSIS - the samples are sent to an FEI approved
laboratory, which is experienced in dealing with horse material. The
laboratory then reports the result directly and confidentially to the
FEI Veterinary Department in Lausanne.
Positive samples - these are reported to the FEI Legal Department and
an opinion as to the type of drug and whether it is on the Prohibited
Substance list is sought from the Medication Sub-committee.
DECISION MAKING ñ all the information on positive samples is passed to
the Judicial Committee who then decide on the outcome of the case and
what sanction should be imposed. The outcome of their discussions are
regularly reported in the FEI Bulletin. The judgments and sanctions are
carefully considered, based on legal principles, and involve an appeal
process should this be necessary.
RESULTS - From the 2000 samples examined each year the positive rate is
approximately 3%, most of which (85%) are due to pain killing and
sedative drugs. About 70% of samples are taken from Jumping horses and
so proportionately the highest number of positives come from that
discipline; 7% are taken from Dressage and Eventing competitions with
4% from Endurance; the rest come from Driving, Vaulting and Reining.
EVENTING ñ There has been no demonstrable increase in the positive rate
in any discipline, including Eventing, over the last 12 months nor in
the types of positives detected.
The medication control programme in the FEI is kept as transparent as
possible and the results disseminated widely within the FEI and its
participating disciplines. The programme (as the Press Release
indicated) is constantly under review. Its ultimate aim is to protect
the reputation of equestrian competition as a clean sport.
Now, the 4% of 2000 drug tests (80 each) for
the endurance competition is for the world. For Europe there were about
52 tests and for the "rest of the world" there 28 tests done. I am
positive in stating that the AERC did a greater percentage of testing
than the FEI Endurance people even thought about.
Read the above very carefully and you will
see that the AERC really is a leader not only with a zero tolerance but
in the way we spell out how we handle our problem and how we get the
job done.
Bob
Bob Morris
Morris Endurance Enterprises
Boise, ID
-- We imitate our masters only because we are not yet masters
ourselves,
and only
We
imitate our masters
only because we are not yet masters ourselves, and only
because
in doing so we
learn the truth about what cannot be imitated.
