Testing for drugs in horses gets more high-tech
Doping schemes are not nearly as common in horses as in human athletes, but show horses are increasingly testing positive for illegal drugs, as testing is now sensitive enough to detect trace amounts of drugs the animals can pick up from their human handlers.
Trish Dowling, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine, shared the information during a talk at the annual Equine Expo that brought horse enthusiasts from across the province to Prairieland Park over the weekend.
Dowling, a veterinary pharmacologist who testifies at drug hearings, said she has only seen a “handful” of instances in which people have deliberately used drugs to enhance their horses’ performance.
Most of the time, positive drug tests occur as a result of misunderstandings — for example, someone doesn’t realize what drugs are prohibited in Canadian competitions — or from contamination.
Contamination has become a bigger issue in the last decade as new, sensitive technology allows testers to detect hundreds of drugs in tiny amounts.
This means that if a person working in a stable urinates in a horse’s stall, the horse’s hay could come in contact with that and the horse could test positive for drugs the person is taking.
Dowling said this is usually what’s happened if — as she has witnessed in the last few years — a horse’s urine sample tests positive for small amounts of anti-depressants.
“People need to have a higher level of concern about who’s around their horse,” Dowling stressed.
The Canadian Veterinary Journal has also reported a case where three horses tested positive for low levels of methamphetamine in late 2014 because they had been transported to a Toronto competition in a trailer that had previously been used as a mobile meth lab.
Dowling was one of eight professors at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine who presented on a wide range of horse health issues during the four-day Equine Expo, which wrapped up Sunday evening.
Horse enthusiasts who made the trek to Prairieland Park were also able to browse through products showcased by nearly 90 exhibitors and watch as three trainers duked it out to see who could best train a young horse over the course of the weekend.