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Drug council reaches consensus on out-of-competition penalty

Posted: Thursday, September 02, 2010 6:09 PM

by Frank Angst

It took a third meeting in eight days but Kentucky’s Equine Drug Research Council agreed on Thursday to recommend a five- to ten-year penalty for horsemen who have a horse test positive in an out-of-competition test.

The EDRC, which was created to make recommendations on equine drug policies to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, will endorse that penalty at Tuesday’s KHRC meeting in Louisville. The penalty matches the five- to ten-year penalty favored by the commission’s rules committee.

Thursday’s meeting was called after a problematic joint meeting of the EDRC and the rules committee on Tuesday. At that meeting, the two representatives of the rules committee voted for the five-to-ten penalty but only four of the eight attending EDRC members favored that penalty. The other four EDRC members favored a minimum ten-year suspension.

At Thursday’s EDRC meeting, Senator Damon Thayer (R-Georgetown), who serves on the commission, moved to amend the proposal to ten years, but that motion failed 4-3. The commission then considered the five-to-ten recommendation, passing it 6-1.

Commission Chair Jerry Yon believes the rules committee will recommend that penalty as well. The full commission then will consider the out-of-competition penalty and rules.

Yon said that while meeting Breeders’ Cup World Championships standards on out-of-competition testing has provided some urgency, the commission has been meeting on the subject for more than a year. The Breeders’ Cup will be conducted this fall at Churchill Downs.

While Yon initially supported the ten-year minimum, he was pleased with the final recommendation, noting the five-to-ten penalty will allow some flexibility, which typically is smiled upon by courts.

Thayer favored the harsher penalty, noting New Jersey, Indiana, Delaware, and the Province of Ontario have a similar penalty. Thayer is working to include Kentucky in a national compact that would aim for consistency in racing rules. Thayer also thinks the state should not adopt a penalty that could be seen as more lenient than other states.

While Thayer agreed with most of the final recommendation on out-of-competition testing, he opposed it because of his difference in opinion on the penalty. The five-to ten-year penalty did strengthen the recommendation of one-to-ten years that had been called for on August 26.

Penalties for positives in out-of-competition testing typically are harsh because such testing targets substances that affect performance but do not show up in post-race testing like blood doping, human growth hormones, and erythropoietin (EPO).

Frank Angst is senior writer for Thoroughbred Times