The New York Equine Drug Research and Experimentation Laboratory has found it’s trying to keep up with people doping racehorses, according to a new report. Times Union February 6 reportdue to the difficulty in tracing adulterated and mislabeled performance enhancing drugs.
The Times Union’s Emilie Munson reported that the New York lab was only able to identify a fraction of the substances found in samples taken from New York racehorses.
“Here’s the problem: So-called performance-enhancing drugs, nobody — nobody — knows what they are,” New York equine lab director Dr. George Maylin told the Times Union. “Nobody has a test for them.”
The racehorse doping case came to prominence in March 2020 when more than two dozen people, including trainers and veterinarians, were arrested following an FBI investigation. Among those people stand out are Thoroughbred trainers Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro.
Maylin also told the Times Union that he was not familiar with some of the drug compounds described in the federal indictments, and was therefore unable to test them. He added that he requested those drug samples from the Department of Justice.
In trying to keep up with testing, for example, the use of erythropoietin, or EPO, a hormone that stimulates red blood cell production, can improve a horse’s endurance in racing. However, EPO can be difficult to detect, especially when given in small doses. The Times Union notes that the New York lab and most other equine testing labs in the country can only test three types of EPO, but there are 82 types worldwide.
“… They have been synthesized; they are available,” Maylin told the Times Union. “So if you’re checking EPO and you only do three and there are over 70 other people there, who are you kidding?”
Client List of Dr. Seth Fishman, who was convicted last week Among the two counts of conspiracy to violate anti-adulteration and misbranding laws and to manufacture PEDs to be administered for racehorses, include more than 2,000 businesses and residents, including 265 of them in New York, the Times. Union wrote. Prosecutors said Fishman supplied illegal products for use in racehorses.
Before his arrest in 2020, Navarro, who purchased products from Fishman, had spent 13 years free of drug violations in New York or 14 other states, the Times Union found, having reviewed regulatory data. Thoroughbred trainer Michael Tannuzzo also had no positives in New York prior to his arrest, while Servis had one in the state in 2005.
Navarro pleaded guilty in the federal doping case; Servis has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
Maylin also told the Times Union that the New York State Gaming Commission’s sample collection from racehorses has fallen by more than 20% since 2015 (before disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic) due to a lack of resources. .
Times Union spent more than six months examining horse races in New York and elsewhere for this and other related stories coming up, talking to a variety of key stakeholders during that time.
