NEWS
RMTC approves rule on anabolic steroids
Posted: Thursday, February 22, 2007 6:49 PM
By Pete Denk
The Racing Medication and Testing Consortium’s board of directors approved a model rule that would establish threshold levels for anabolic steroids at its meeting at the Westin Tampa Harbour Island Hotel on Wednesday.
The rule will be forwarded to the Racing Commissioners International (RCI) for approval at the RCI’s annual convention April 23-27.
The consortium did not reveal the exact language of the proposed rule, but Executive Director Scot Waterman said it would involve threshold levels for the four FDA approved steroids—stanozolol, testosterone, nandrolone, and boldenone. All other steroids would be illegal, Waterman said.
Anabolic steroids are prohibited in virtually all racing jurisdictions outside North America.
“We’ve been discussing this since early last year—so we’ve been picking at this for a year—and I think the time is right,” Waterman said. “I think really the thing that accelerated our discussions and certainly accelerated interest within the industry was the appearance of the language in the jockey insurance bill that congressman Ed Whitfield put up. There was a throwaway line at the end that would prohibit anabolic steroids.
“The realization was that if we don’t do this, then perhaps the federal government will do it for us and we might not like the results, so let’s do something proactive.”
Waterman said it would be about a year before any type of steroid rule would go into effect.
“In terms of a start date, something like January 2008 would seem like a reasonable time,” Waterman said. “We’re going from unregulated to regulated, and these are substances that can hang around for a long time.”
In other action, the RMTC granted tentative approval to an agreement with the Kentucky Equine Drug Research Council to establish a 25-horse research stable, pending final approval from the Drug Research Council and the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority.
The test stable would be used to develop thresholds and withdrawal times for various drugs.
“It’s an opportunity to administer therapeutic drugs to horses who are kept as close to the condition as possible as a horse on the backstretch,” Waterman said. “It would give us an opportunity to administer drugs and collect samples. The hope would be at the end of the day that we’d have a book of withdrawal times that horsemen could take across state lines and they’d work in one state or another.”
Pete Denk is a Thoroughbred Times staff writer
