John McVeigh: in search of a global set of medication rules | Trainer Magazine | European Trainer Article Index

Jun 29

Jun 29 John McVeigh: in search of a global set of medication rules

McVEIGH said, “We should put the best medical minds together for the welfare and integrity of the sport.” However, pointing at the Australian and US models as an example, he acknowledged the logistical problems of a worldwide set of rules ever becoming a reality. “In Australian racing there are six states and two territories that each have their own independent governing bodies, and there are four accredited laboratories in the country, each with its own methods.” This scenario is enhanced nearly tenfold in the US, where there are more than 30 different racing jurisdictions all with their own laboratories and sets of rules and detection times. This is in contrast to Europe, for example, where the European Horserace Scientific Liaison Committee (EHSLC) liaises and coordinates between different countries, and Canada, where consensus has been reached on detection times. “Can you imagine the politics on a world scale if jurisdictions within a single country can’t reach an agreement?” lamented McVeigh. He added, “The American lobby is huge and powerful as they breed the most thoroughbred horses in the world.” McVeigh practices chiefly out of South Africa, and he is the chairman of a liaison committee between that country’s horseracing authority (NHRA) and the Veterinary Association. The NHRA are now adopting something close to the suggestions the liaison committee had actually made some 20 years ago regarding medications. McVeigh, commenting on the NHRA’s approach back in the 1990s, said, “It was like driving down the road and not knowing what the speed limit was.” The NHRA are now closely following the recommendations for medication detection times given to them by the EHSLC. The NHRA have also accepted the introduction of a simple record book that McVeigh designed that protects (or implicates) both the trainer and the veterinarian in cases where a horse is found to be “positive.” The book, which is numbered sequentially, simply provides a master copy of the medicine dosage an d the veterinarian’s advised withdrawal time and a tear off duplicate copy is left with the trainer. McVeigh’s beliefs on racehorse medication are very clear: “Medicine should be administered for the welfare of the horse and in order to allow the horse to safely compete to the best of its ability, but the horse should be free of pharmacologically active levels of medications on race day. That policy is fair to the horse and protects the integrity of the sport.” McVeigh is hence against the use of furosemide (Salix/Lasix) and Phenylbutazone (Bute) in racehorses unless they are used as controlled therapeutic medicines for the occasional horse that needs it on the training tracks. McVeigh need not reiterate that the policies of some of the racing authorities of the Western Hemisphere towards the usage of medications like Lasix and Bute are the single biggest obstacle to international harmonisation of medication control in horseracing. To illustrate the effects these policies are having on the thoroughbred breed, he pointed not only at the example of Germany, which does not allow stallions that have raced on medication in their breeding sheds, but also at the dwindling reputation of US-bred thoroughbreds. The latter is best summed up by the recent publication, in the US’s Thoroughbred Daily News , of a no-holds-barred open letter from Coolmore director of sales David O’Loughlin, that slams US racing drug dependency. O’Loughlin revealed that a frequent discussion topic at Irish, British, and French sales regarded the perceived demise in quality and endurance of American horses “because they are so dependent on drugs for racing” and to the widely held belief that “chronic bursting/ bleeding is endemic in American-bred horses.” He added that much of this belief stems from people's first-hand experience of US-bred stock when they were put into a racing environment with zero tolerance of Lasix. “We are all too aware of horses which couldn't compete in Europe because they bled so badly, but went on to achieve success at a high level in America with the assistance of medication,” he wrote. O’Loughlin reminisced about the great American-bred racehorses and sires of the past before concluding, “Many European purchasers who annually travelled to Kentucky to purchase US-bred weanlings, yearlings, or broodmares no longer do so because they believe your bloodstock is now inferior and unsound. It's going to take a lot of work to turn this mindset around, but if you don't do something about it soon the commercial breeders in Kentucky will be left with a product the major international racing community no longer wants." In June last year McVeigh, speaking at the International Summit on Race Day Medication: Exercise-Induced Pulmonary Hemorrhaging (EIPH) and the Racehorse, held at Belmont Park, shared the findings of a 2004 South African Study that identified a genetic link to EIPH. The study, by Hans Weideman, S.J. Schoeman, and G.F. Jordaan, was very comprehensive and involved 63,146 horses and 778,532 races run over a period from 1986 to 2002. The study only considered epistaxis (bleeding from the nose) and did not use endoscopes to look for lesser bleeding. Its conclusion showed that epistaxis, as related to EIPH in South African thoroughbred sires, had a strong genetic basis. Of equal concern was that the percentage incidence of epistaxis among the racehorse population increased over the 16 years of the study, particularly over the final five years. In the beginning it showed that 1% of racehorses in South Africa bled from the nose, but by the end this figure had increased to 2.1% and it is currently at 2.5%. This figure differs around the world and, for example, according to figures disseminated at the summit, Britain has an epistaxis rate of 0.33% per 1000 runners, Hong Kong’s rate is 4.7% and Singapore’s is 5.1%. South Africa had many stallions imported from the US during the time of the EIPH study and one of the recommendations made in the conclusion was that Lasix be banned internationally from racing, or failing that, breeders should refrain from buying potential sires that have raced on the drug. McVeigh also pointed out during his summit speech that a couple of the sires that had the worst statistics for passing on the bleeding trait were champion sires and hence had high numbers of progeny. Many US racing industry men are also vehemently opposed to the use of Lasix including the likes of the legendary Kentucky breeder Arthur Hancock, who said in a CBS report, “Generation after generation, they're going to get weaker and that's what's happened." Barry Irwin, who owned and bred last year’s Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom and whose syndication company Team Valor International has enjoyed tremendous success with South African-breds, among others, also weighed in. Irwin said, “In America, we have a few problems that have created the perfect storm to mess up our racing, as follows: One, most trainers today know no other way to train other than to use drugs because they have only trained under permissive med rules. Two, states rights prevail and we have 50 states and they each have their own rules. Three, commercialism rules the day. “If this were 50 years ago, when more breeders raced their stock, they never would have allowed these drugs to be used. But today most breeders want to bring their stock to market, they take shortcuts and don't care about what happens after their product is sold. Add the drugs into the mix and an environment where the states have been sold a bill of goods by trainers and veterinarians and the problem is monumental.” McVeigh was in fact personally thanked for the dissemination of the information provided by the EIPH study by a senior racing official in the US, who was concerned about the integrity of the breed. His summit speech was certainly a contributor y factor to the Breeders’ Cup decision to make the five two-year-old events Lasix-free this year and to have all 15 Breeders’ Cup events Lasix-free by 2013. Unfortunately, in February this year, the American Graded Stakes Committee, citing strong opposition from horsemen, reversed a 2011 decision that would require a ban on race day Lasix in order for two-year-old races to obtain a grade, although this reversal will not affect the Breeders’ Cup, who have their own raceday medication committee. This is not surprising, as a quick glance at a US racecard usually reveals that more than 95% of the horses entered will race on Lasix. The conclusion of another study done by Guthrie, Hinchcliff, and Morley on 167 horses that were subjected to race day conditions at the Vaal racecourse in South Africa in November 2007 was the first time any proof had been provided that Lasix does indeed reduce the incidence of bleeding. More than half of thoroughbreds have some amount of blood in their trachea after a single race, and Hinchcliff et al had previously confirmed the widely held belief that breathing into the airways does impair the athletic performance of racehorses. A study done by Hinchcliff in Australia concluded that, “Horses with EIPH defined as grade 2 or higher, were 4.0 times less likely to win, 1.8 times less likely to finish in the top three places, and finished 1.8 metres farther behind the winner than did unaffected horses. The severity of EIPH (grade 0-4) was significantly associated with reduced probability of winning, slower horse speed, and greater lengths behind the winner. Horses with grade 4 EIPH finished an average of 3.4 metres farther behind the winner than horses of grade 0.” Some of the data provided by Guthrie, Hinchcliff, and Morley did give leverage to those who justify the use of Lasix on race day. However, this doesn’t justify the extremely high percentage of horses in the US and Canada that race on Lasix. McVeigh said, “Lasix should be prescribed for horses that bleed and if this is not the case it constitutes an abuse of medication. Although one in two horses will show signs of bleeding after a race, only one in five bleed to the extent that it effects their performance.” He pointed out that Lasix had become so entrenched in US racing that first-time Lasix usage is highlighted on the race card. The Daily Racing Form publication in the US said the reason this information is important is because “first-time Lasix can sometimes leads to a dramatically improved performance from a horse.” McVeigh gives his full support to those regulatory bodies that distinguish between the control of illicit substances (doping control) and the control of therapeutic substances (medication control). “Doping” drugs, such as agents that stimulate the central nervous system, can artificially enhance the horse’s physical capacity and its competitive instinct, and there should be zero tolerance for these drugs. However, an anti-doping policy must not impede the use of legitimate veterinary medications and therefore another important philosophy that most regulatory bodies are now beginning to employ, and which McVeigh also supports, is that a “zero tolerance rule” is not suitable for medication control. The high level of sensitivity of modern screening methods allows traces of legitimate medications to be detected long after their presence is having any effect. In the pa st this has led to some trainers attaining “positives” and being unfairly labeled as “cheats” by the uneducated racing public. “Chasing traces is counterproductive,” said McVeigh. He pointed out that the general racing public do not have the knowledge to differentiate between irrelevant traces and levels that are having a pharmacological effect, or, even worse, to differentiate between therapeutic medicine and “dope.” The EHLSC, and other similar bodies like the Racing Testing and Medication Consortium (RMTC) in the US, have now established the use of harmonised screening limits (HSL) relating to commonly used drugs in equine medication. McVeigh has no problem with the fact that HSLs are generally kept confidential. “As long as one knows the detection time, it is fine,” he said. However, he feels strongly that progress should be made towards reaching a worldwide standard for Screening Limits so that detection times are the same wherever a horse or a veterinarian travels. Screening Limits effectively reflect the assessments on integrity risks made by the authority that decides them. “No significant effect levels is what we should all be aiming for,” said McVeigh, implying that the world should reach consensus in this area rather than leaving different racing authorities to assess their own integrity risks. In fact, at an Advisory Council Meeting of the International Federation Of Horseracing Authorites (IFHA) in 2010, there were strong opinions from the US, Australia, and Hong Kong representatives that in order for the IFHA to progress to global harmonisation in this area, publication of agreed Screening Limits was essential. The meeting was unanimous in agreeing that the Advisory Council, and hence the IFHA, needed to progress this matter and produce a list of drugs with International Screening Limits (ISLs), signatory countries, and, if possible, the corresponding detection times. This is still a work in progress. It should be noted that international thresholds for “substances endogenous to the horse, substances arising from plants traditionally grazed or harvested as equine feed, or substances in equine feed arising from contamination during cultivation, processing or treatment, storage or transportation,” are published by the IFHA. McVeigh explained that veterinarians still had to use their discretion when administering drugs that had standardised detection times. “The withdrawal time will always be longer than the detection time,” he said. “For example, a withdrawal period is longer if a horse is fed the drug as opposed to being given it intravenously.” He also explained that withdrawal times in horses are effected by differing metabolisms and other factors, meaning it is possible for a medication to show a level above the HSL after the official detection time, so these variables have to be taken into account to be safe. The IFHA was founded in 1993 in order to, among other things, coordinate and harmonise the rules of the member-countries regarding breeding, racing, and wagering. However, the member countries are unable to reach consensus on medication control. The aim of Article 6 of the IFHA is to protect the integrity of horseracing, through controlling the use of substances capable of giving a horse an advantage or disadvantage in a race, contrary to the horse’s inherent merits. Only 35 of the 59 member countries are full signatories to Article 6, which has 19 sections, and 17 are partial signatories. While some of the partial signatories sited the regulation of Lasix and Bute as their only disagreement, there were others, including Great Britain, Australia, USA, and New Zealand, who didn’t sign for section 10, which defines the constitution of a prohibited substance. Still others disagreed with the threshold levels for certain substances, while Korea disagreed with the rule pertaining to the origin of substances that can have a threshold placed on them and others didn’t accept the section pertaining to laboratory service. The US disagreed with the section on sanctions that should be taken against a horse found to be “positive.” It is clear there is still a long way to go to reach worldwide consensus, while the problem of tracking the administering of recombinant biological substances (EPO, GH, growth factors) is another challenge facing the world’s equine sports scientists. McVeigh regarded the “gulf” between some of the West racing jurisdictions (the US, some tracks in Canada, and some South American countries including Brazil), and countries that are signatories of the IFHA’s article 6 as “insane.” In the worst instances, the former not only allow race day medications like Lasix, but also generally a 48-hour detection time for Bute and a 24-hour detection time for Flunixin, as opposed to the 168 hours and 144 hours respectively recommended by the EHSLC. He also pointed to a gulf that could be dangerous to the future of horseracing, i.e. the gulf in opinion that ranges from the extreme of those who are in favour of race day medications to the extreme of groups like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), who continue to push the racing industry to ban whips, enforce a zero-tolerance drug policy, dump dirt tracks in favour of softer grass tracks, and wait until horses' third birthdays to use them in competitive racing. McVeigh does not underestimate the threat of animal activist groups that tend to pounce upon the worst possible examples of the ill effects that equine sport has on horses, and he reckoned a worldwide standard set of rules would lessen their leverage power. McVeigh practices what he preaches and his expertise in diagnosis and treatment have made him a racehorse veterinarian of worldwide renown. McVeigh concluded by saying that powerful leadership would be needed to override the differences in opinion and reach a worldwide consensus on medication and doping control. “Unpopular decisions are unpopular but have to be made,” he said, before naming Nelson Mandela as a leader who was not scared to make such decisions. Indeed the great man once said, “The day I am afraid to [risk my political capital] is the day I am no longer fit to lead.”

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THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN - EUROPEAN TRAINER - ISSUE 38

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