HORSEPLOP.COM
General Category => Harness Racing => Topic started by: bond on July 22, 2026, 02:41:03 PM
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Recently Mike came up positive on Detomidine-a short acting sedative. He received a 1000$ fine and 60 day suspension and all his horses as well.
Since the high-profile scandals of Lou Pena's 1700+ going inside withdrawal times infractions---- regulatory bodies—including the New York State Gaming Commission and national groups like HISA and the RMTC—drastically changed their approach. Instead of focusing only on high-level, intentional "doping" agents, they supercharged their laboratory testing equipment.Today's testing technology is so incredibly sensitive that it regularly triggers a "positive" for fractional, completely inactive parts-per-billion garbage text—like a 3.27 ng/mL miniscule detomidine metabolite Mikes horse had—long after any therapeutic effect has vanished.The result is a highly defensive system where a trainer who does everything by the book, but miscalculates a therapeutic clearance window by just an hour or two, gets treated with the exact same harshness as a intentional cheater. It creates a reality where the lab results rule with absolute "strict liability," completely ignoring the common-sense physics of whether the horse actually had an unfair advantage on the track.
Thats whats happening on a weekly schedule---every week you see the same-miniscule metabolites-having no effect on the horse--trainer gets outed-sometimes at enormous costs--while out of competition testing to really catch the cheaters--crickets.
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If all of your comment is true, why do the "real cheaters" not get caught for the same reasons?
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the industry does not allocate any money for out of competition testing
no racetracks or state racing commissions are willing to absorb those costs
a large percentage of the leading breeders and owners are using trainers with a long history of positives--so they don't really want to dig that deep because they know they are complicit with all of this activity
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the industry does not allocate any money for out of competition testing
no racetracks or state racing commissions are willing to absorb those costs
a large percentage of the leading breeders and owners are using trainers with a long history of positives--so they don't really want to dig that deep because they know they are complicit with all of this activity
I understand the lack of out of competition testing, but if the "real cheaters" are using drugs, why don't they get caught with the same miniscule / fractional amounts others do with the race day testing??
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"I understand the lack of out of competition testing, but if the "real cheaters" are using drugs, why don't they get caught with the same miniscule / fractional amounts others do with the race day testing??"
Exactly why Fishman and co-are/were behind bars--they used clandestine chemists using drugs that were designed to beat the testing.
Only way to eliminate these kind-is what the FBI did-wire tapping-using informants. Out of Competition has a flaw-which we saw with Lance Armstrong--he knew about Out of Competition testing-knew when they were coming-so used small doses-that would clear whenever he was tested and also used masking agents. Only way he was caught--whistleblower.
Instead of wasting money and using scapegoats-issuing BS positives that does nothing to catch real cheaters--offer huge rewards for information leading to conviction of cheaters.Not from haters-real information from people in the know.