Expanded Racing Commission Test Protocols Lead to Detection of Blood Doping in Six New Jersey Race Horses

May 6, 2008 -- TRENTON - Racing Commission Executive Director Frank Zanzuccki announced today that a Racing Commission investigation has resulted in the first positive test results obtained under the state’s recently-expanded testing protocols aimed at detecting the use of performance-enhancing substances in race horses.

Harness racing: Photo by Jill (CC)

Racing Commission investigators oversaw the drawing of fluids from horses at the Commission-licensed Winner’s International Farm in Chesterfield, Burlington County, last month. Laboratory tests subsequently confirmed that six harness race horses under the care of trainer Ernest Adam and owned by Commission-licensed owner Stephen C. Slender, DVM, had tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug Erythropoietin-Human (EPO). The six harness horses have been declared ineligible to compete in New Jersey racing, consistent with the rules of the Racing Commission’s new “out-of-competition” testing initiative.

New Jersey State Police searched the farm where the six horses had been kept earlier today. Based on lab results and other information obtained during the investigation, the Racing Commission will now conduct a hearing to determine whether Adam and Slender have violated Commission rules. The Commission is in the process of issuing Adam and Slender Notices of Hearing, which list their alleged rule violations.

Pending the outcome of their respective hearings, both men remain eligible to participate in New Jersey racing. Under Racing Commission rules, a trainer is the absolute insurer of, and is responsible for, the condition of a horse within his or her care and custody. Violations of the state’s testing rules are punishable by a 10-year license suspension and $50,000 fine.
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The six horses identified as having tested positive for EPO have all raced at Freehold and the Meadowlands in New Jersey this year, and have raced at tracks in New York and Pennsylvania as well.

The six horses are: Art Maker, who last raced this past Sunday at Chester Downs, Pa.; Jeremy’s Successor, who last raced at the Meadowlands in New Jersey on Sunday; Jovial Joker N, who last raced at Saratoga, N.Y. on Sunday; JW Dutch Treat, who last raced at Yonkers, N.Y. on April 24; Pacific Playboy, who last raced at Chester Downs, Pa. on Sunday; and Western Mac, who last raced at Chester Downs on April 20.

The Racing Commission’s out-of-competition testing program was launched in late 2007. It began following adoption of a new rule that expanded the Racing Commission’s ability to test horses for illegal substances by authorizing testing not only at racetracks, but at horse farms -- and at any time. Previously, the Commission was only authorized to conduct testing of horses on race day, and only at New Jersey’s four racetracks.

Zanzuccki explained that the testing program is necessary to detect the improper administration of blood doping agents such as human EPO, which is improperly used in race horses to improve the animal’s performance.

EPO artificially increases red blood cells and hemoglobin, and can therefore enhance oxygen consumption during racing. The use of human EPO products is dangerous to the well-being of the horses, because it causes unnatural increases in blood viscosity, which can lead to heart attack or stroke during intense exercise. In addition, EPO is a human pharmaceutical product never intended for use in horses, and never approved for such a purpose. Use of the drug in horses can trigger an immune response, such that the horse begins to destroy not only the human drug, but its own natural equine EPO.

Source: New Jersey Attorney General