Racing Medication and Testing Consortium

The nation's racetracks appear primed for compliance with the first set of uniform receiving barn cleanliness, maintenance and security regulations. Just how stringent these rules will be remains up in the air. Back in August, the TDN took a dive into the issues that stakeholders frequently raise about the nation's fleet of receiving barns. This included the potential for unclean stalls, or receiving barns in poor overall physical condition, to cause environmental contamination through left behind trace drug residues. Last month, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) issued for...

The Racing Medication and Testing Consortium (RMTC) has issued a 60-day accreditation suspension of the University of Illinois Chicago Analytical Forensic Toxicology Laboratory (UIC-AFTL), one of five laboratories contracted by the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unity (HIWU) to conduct drug testing for the agency. According to RMTC executive director, Michael Hardy, the agency notified UIC's Analytical Forensic Toxicology Laboratory of its suspension Tuesday. "The Horserace Testing Laboratory Committee (HTLC), which is tasked with overseeing RMTC's Laboratory Accreditation Program, will, upon receipt, review the laboratory's response and associated corrective actions. Accreditation...

The Racing Medication and Testing Consortium (RMTC) has extended for another six months its accreditation suspension of the University of Kentucky's Equine Analytical Chemistry Laboratory. The RMTC initially suspended its accreditation of the laboratory back in March, following news that the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) had stopped sending samples to the lab due to "concerns with the performance" of the facility. Prior to that, the laboratory had been one of six drug testing facilities used under the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act's (HISA) drug testing program. According to...

The Racing Medication and Testing Consortium (RMTC) has suspended its accreditation of the University of Kentucky's Equine Analytical Chemistry Laboratory, according to the RMTC's executive director, Michael Hardy. This follows news last week that the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) and Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) have opened an investigation into the UK Laboratory's performance, and that the agencies were cooperating with the university's own investigation into the matter. The university is also conducting an ongoing personnel investigation relating to former lab director Scott Stanley and that "Dr....

In a statement Thursday, the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU)--the enforcement arm of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA)--said that an internal review of the six accredited laboratories used by the agency had unearthed different limits of detection in blood for metformin, a banned substance at all times under HISA. "Following this review, which was conducted in collaboration with the laboratories, it was determined that not all applied the same Limit of Detection in analyzing samples for the presence of Metformin. HIWU has since met with all six...

Edited Press Release The Racing Medication & Testing Consortium (RMTC) today announced the funding of a three-year post-doctoral fellowship research project "Micro RNAs as Sensitive Biomarkers for Detection of Drug Administration in Horses." This promising project was submitted by Dr. Camilo Jaramillo-Morales with the Pharmacology and Toxicology Graduate group at the University of California, Davis. Assessment of RNA or protein biomarkers offers an alternative, and potentially more sensitive approach to the detection of prohibited substances administered to racehorses. The overall goal of the current study is to develop an alternate...

The Racing Medication & Testing Consortium (RMTC)'s part-time Executive Director, Dr. Michael Hardy, has been promoted to full-time Executive Director of the RMTC, the organization announced on Monday. In his new position, Hardy will be responsible for the management of the RMTC's Laboratory Accreditation and External Quality Assurance Program in conjunction with the new Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit and will also administer the RMTC's Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) process, manage the organization's monitoring of emerging threats to the integrity of racing, and oversee the process of reviewing applications received...

Despite all the legal jockeying these past few weeks and months, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act's (HISA) anti-doping and medication control program still appears set for launch on Jan. 1 in the vast majority of states that conduct pari-mutuel wagering. This means on the first day of 2023, thousands of trainers, veterinarians and other backstretch workers must grapple with a new set of rules guiding how and when to administer a set of everyday medications--the list of which can be found here--to avoid falling foul of a post-race and...

This past summer, Michael Kegley Jr. and Kristian Rhein both pled guilty to felony drug adulteration and misbranding charges in the alleged international Thoroughbred doping conspiracy case. That means they'll avoid trials prior to their sentencings. But it doesn't mean that the voluminous cache of evidence that prosecutors would have used against them won't ever see the light of day. In fact, just last week, the feds disclosed intriguing documentation about SGF-1000, the adulterated and misbranded purportedly performance-enhancing drug (PED) that was an elixir of choice for now-barred trainer Jorge...

The Racing Medication & Testing Consortium (RMTC) will hold the 5th annual RegVet CE 2022, a veterinary continuing education program for racing regulatory veterinarians, at Churchill Downs Mar. 21-22. With 18 hours of lectures and labs, in addition to interactive and hands-on sessions, the theme will be 'Infectious Disease and Movement of Horses.' Internationally recognized experts including Peter Timoney FRCVS, PhD (University of Kentucky); David Horohov, PhD (University of Kentucky); Maureen Long, DVM, PhD, DACVIM (University of Florida); and Laurie Beard, DVM, DACVIM (Kansas State University) will be featured. The...

(This is the second in a series we are doing on environmental contamination. Click here for part one.) Like a Matryoshka doll of conjecture and supposition, the very real threat of environmental contamination in the horse racing industry's testing protocols can play out like a game that becomes ever more intricate with each layer unpeeled. In part one of this series, we looked at a growing understanding of the array of possible contaminants in the backstretch environment coupled with ever more sensitive testing methodologies. But go deeper, and what emerges...

Over the past year or so, a series of high-profile positives attributed to environmental contamination have dogged racing's highest-profile trainer, Bob Baffert. Last week, the California Horse Racing Board's Board (CHRB) conducted a hearing into the Dextrorphan positive incurred by the Baffert-trained Merneith (American Pharoah) in July. Connections had attributed the positive to cross-contamination stemming from Merneith's groom, who took DayQuil and NyQuil, both of which contain Dextrorphan. Before that were the positives from Arkansas in May, when the Grade I-winning Gamine (Into Mischief) and Charlatan (Speightstown) subsequently tested positive...