by Frank Angst

In the first meeting of the newly named and reconstituted regulator that oversees Kentucky horse racing, equine steroid policy was placed on the front burner.

Shortly after swearing in seven new members of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, including new Vice Chairman Tracy Farmer, Commission Chairman Robert Beck said the group plans to take swift action on the issue of anabolic steroids.

“I hope in a short time we will have a proposal on anabolic steroids,” Beck said. “I hope to get that proposal out to the members of this commission soon.”

The commission’s executive director, Lisa Underwood, believes the commission will act on a steroid policy before summer’s end. A steroid subcommittee formed by the Kentucky Equine Drug Research Council is scheduled to meet on July 16.

The drug council formed the subcommittee in May, a move supported by Connie Whitfield, who chaired the council, which forms drug policy recommendations for the commission, at that time. The creation of the subcommittee appeared likely to slow steroid policy adoption because it was assigned the task of forming a consensus on equine steroid issues, a task largely completed by the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, a national organization with wide-ranging industry representation.

Whitfield was not named by Governor Steve Beshear to the reshaped Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. Because she served as the regulator’s equine drug council representative, she no longer will retain that seat. Beck will nominate three current commission members to the governor, one of which will be selected to chair the drug council.

The RMTC’s work shaped the Association of Racing Commissioners International’s model rule on anabolic steroids. The model rule outlaws all steroids in horses in training and allows the use of just four steroids, only one of which can be administered at a time, for horses out of training.

Alan Leavitt, who chairs a drug council subcommittee on out-of-competition testing including erythropoietin (EPO), is prepared to make a recommendation to the drug council the next time it meets. That recommendation would then likely be placed before the commission.

“We have a lot of work to do and we’re going to get started,” Beck said.

Frank Angst is senior writer of Thoroughbred Times