by Paulick Report Staff | 11.12.2020 | 5:26pm
Report: 77 Percent Of New York Thoroughbreds From Indicted Trainers Were Positive For Clenbuterol After Arrests:
https://www.paulickreport.com/news/the-biz/report-77-percent-of-new-york-thoroughbreds-from-indicted-trainers-were-positive-for-clenbuterol-after-arrests/
At a press conference this week, New York State Gaming Commission equine medical director Dr. Scott Palmer revealed that the majority of New York-based Thoroughbreds with trainers under federal indictment tested positive for clenbuterol in the weeks after the March arrests that rocked the racing world.
Standardbreds and Thoroughbreds that were trained by anyone named in the March indictment of more than two dozen trainers, veterinarians, and drug distributors in an alleged doping scheme were put on the veterinarian's list for 60 days and had biological samples taken for testing. Palmer said this week that the horses were tested at least twice during this period. Of nearly 100 Thoroughbreds based in the New York at the time, Palmer said 77 had levels of clenbuterol in their blood.
Though Palmer is still compiling veterinary records for some of those horses, so far he says none of those records show administration of clenbuterol. That leads him to suspect the drug was not being given as part of a legitimate treatment for a diagnosed condition, but rather for its side effects, which mimic anabolic steroids with repeated usage.
Palmer called the discovery “concrete evidence that clenbuterol was being widely abused in the Thoroughbred horses,” according to the Thoroughbred Daily News.
The above article appeared yesterday (Thursday 11-12-2020) on The Paulick Report.
Imo, the above quote from the article confirms what many players have suspected for some time.
Clenbuterol is given for it's anabolic effects, then withdrawn early enough so that horses don't test positive post-race. But the additional muscle mass created by the drug's anabolic effect remains with the horse and improves performance on race-day.
-- Jeff Platt, for HANA
