THERE are two main reasons why medicines with the potential to affect horse performance are regulated.

The first is similar to that which applies to human athletic endeavour – the need to have a level playing field, to have athletes compete on their true merit, ‘may the best man win’ and so on.

The second reason has broadly to do with equine welfare. You might say ‘my horse talks to me’ but we don’t mean they literally use words.

We speak of horses displaying clinical signs but of humans expressing symptoms (of disease). The welfare of animals used for sporting purposes must be safeguarded by us as they cannot do it for themselves. Horses that are ill or injured should be treated and only offered for competition when cured; or at least recovered sufficiently that their welfare will not be adversely affected by the effort we ask of them. Some of the medicines we use to treat disease have the potential to mask clinical signs – making a horse seem better than he truly is and prone to greater harm. The integrity of competition must be protected, as must the welfare of competition horses. So we have veterinary inspections of horses before and after competition.

In short, there are two types of drugs (or medicines) that have the potential to affect the athletic performance of horses. Some in both categories are naturally occurring – like oestrogen; some are synthetic – man-made drugs made for a specific purpose.

The regulatory authorities for horse racing (the IHRB, previously called The Turf Club in Ireland) and the FEI (plus subsidiary bodies in Horse Sport Ireland) differ in some of the specifics of what they permit and at what levels; but broad principles apply.

In the first ‘therapeutic’ category, there are the ‘regular’ ‘legitimate’ medicines that vets use to treat horses for disease conditions. In the second ‘banned’ category, drug substances that have no legitimate therapeutic purpose in performance horses – anabolic steroids (muscle-building sex hormones) and long-acting antipsychotic agents (that are designed to relieve anxiety in psychiatric patients), etc.

Therapeutic drugs

The therapeutic category need to be used with care, and only when necessary in an individual competition horse. In general antibiotics are no longer considered an issue here – on the basis that they do not enhance athletic performance above that which the horse is naturally capable. Painkillers (like ‘bute’ and flunixin) or cortisone injections into joints have the potential to mask lameness and improve performance. Beta-agonists (like clenbuterol) dilate airways helping horses with lung disease to breathe easier; but they also promote lean muscle mass, and so they have known ability to enhance performance.

Some Beta-agonists (like salbutamol) are commonly found in asthma inhalers for humans and some (like Zilpaterol) are licensed for fattening livestock in some non-EU countries. Vets, trainers, riders and owners seek to observe an appropriate ‘withdrawal period’ such that traces of these therapeutic drugs are no longer detectible in a horse’s system (via urine or blood sampling) at the time of competition. In the firmly ‘banned’ category we have drugs that should never be found in a competition horse’s system.

In reality they rarely are – such is the effort that the regulators (IHRB and FEI) make to educate the persons responsible for competition horses. There are many incidences whereby vets use medicines ‘off-label’ in animals – that is they use medicines licensed in another species (including humans).

This system is called the ‘cascade for animal remedies’ and is perfectly legitimate when vets employ it in exceptional circumstances and in interests of their patients’ health and welfare. There have, however, been instances where drugs not designed for horses but with the potential to affect performance (up or down) have been found at competition. This type of drug use causes the regulator particular concern.

And there is always the potential for the commercially produced feeds that high-performance horses are fed to be contaminated with agents banned in competition. For good reason, many companies producing animal feeds do not produce product lines for competition horses. For those that do, their raw ingredient sources need to be impeccable, their transport strictly controlled, their manufacturing processes of the highest quality, their quality control systems rigorous and rigorously applied. Otherwise, the manufacturer risks inadvertently including ingredients containing naturally occurring banned substances.

Regulators of horse sport want to minimise the risk that a medicated or drugged horse puts in a performance above or below that which he otherwise would. They seek to protect the integrity of completion and assure the public that all are competing on their merits – a level playing field for all.