Here’s what I don’t understand.
If the USEF rules make it illegal to give a horse any substance that is intended to enhance ring performance, how is it that a substance named “Perfect Prep” would ever be considered legal? Just the name indicates that it considers itself to be a performance enhancer.
More than anything I am just so saddened by all of this. I coveted Inclusive and now I wonder what he’s really like. Couldn’t he be himself and still be sensational? And doesn’t it get boring posing for photo after photo when you knew you were cheating?
Hunters are my first love and I’ve been doing them since I was 13… so 40yrs with some breaks here and there. I hate when my discipline is soiled by these types of actions and people.
Horse is not suspended, rider is not suspended, owner is not suspended, and the horse that was drugged to win in at least one class is showing this weekend as if nothing had happened and stands to win a whale of a lot of money.
Maybe the USEF should acquire some false teeth since it clearly has none of its own.
[QUOTE=vineyridge;8303835]
Here’s what I don’t understand.
If the USEF rules make it illegal to give a horse any substance that is intended to enhance ring performance, how is it that a substance named “Perfect Prep” would ever be considered legal? Just the name indicates that it considers itself to be a performance enhancer.[/QUOTE]
I don’t understand this either. When money and prestige is at stake people find ways to cheat and sometimes the people regulating those sports take a while to figure out how to test for certain substances or whether they need to. This is not just an equestrian problem and it is certainly not just a hunter ring problem. The cheaters are always ahead of the curve of the testers. New medications, “supplements” and masking agents will sadly always be used by those who are unethical and unsportsmanlike.
[QUOTE=vineyridge;8303835]
Here’s what I don’t understand.
If the USEF rules make it illegal to give a horse any substance that is intended to enhance ring performance, how is it that a substance named “Perfect Prep” would ever be considered legal? Just the name indicates that it considers itself to be a performance enhancer.[/QUOTE]
The ingredients are “legal” in limited qualities. Give enough of it and it’s over the “legal” limit as well as unhealthy.
I am so surprised nobody has killed a fancy show hunter or jumper (other than the pony of course).
I doubt any “barn manager” or groom or trainer may legally medicate their customers horses. Sure the meds are available for purchase and many trainers are very well educated, as are their staff, but if they kill some million dollar show hunter is Marshall & Sterling (for example) going to cover the trainer for THAT? That’s more than negligence isn’t it? Animal cruelty?
Horse owners are so trusting of BNTs. Your big investment is being medicated to oblivion and you’re trusting someone with a high school education (maybe) who gets their veterinary knowledge from their horse show buddies.
Did the people who over-medicated this poor vein-blown horse have any idea of the witches cauldron they had mixed in his system? How did they know someone else didn’t medicate the horse? When he falls down in the shavings twitching do they know what to do other than to call the vet and create alibis?
Take away the meds and we’ll end up like the Quarter Horse and Paint world. Horses won’t see food or water for days. Can’t have liverpools in the USET cuz the poor horses will stop for a drink. They’ll be tied with their head up for weeks. Sad to think about the hunters and eq is they have to be so damn quite now. If they could blink and shake their heads and have a gallop, they’d be happier and healthier.
Having read that transcript, more than ever I feel I was right not to go back into hunter showing.
BC’s muddled thinking, as displayed in the transcript, apparently didn’t realize that the biggest loser in this lawsuit will be: her daughter Tori.
The lawsuit and the public reveal of that transcript, in the eyes of the general public, makes Tori Colvin the junior horse show champion equivalent of Lance Armstrong. Even if Tori didn’t break any rules, now we ALL know that it wasn’t just horsemanship that won those ribbons. People figure she got caught out once, but no way was that the only time.
Her fabled junior career is now irreparably sullied, and these rumors and assumptions will follow her throughout her adult equestrian career. It’s what people talk about. Thanks, mom.
Hopefully TC has more sense than Lance Armstrong did, and won’t try to claim that on a level playing field of doped horses, she was the best rider of a doped horse.
How would that winning round on Inclusive gone without a test-positive level of substance(s) in his system? Would she have won without it?
In the transcript, TC’s mother doesn’t come across as truthful at all. She comes across to me as a convinced doper of horses who has little respect for any rules or guidelines. Whether or not she gave the dose on the day in question.
It comes across that doping and dodging positive test results was a specialty of TC’s entire horse show management crew. Sick.
The whole part about “it doesn’t work on Inclusive”. REALLY ??? Lady, you sure know a lot about what does and doesn’t work on Inclusive! She doesn’t just use these meds, clearly she tries different combinations to see what has what effect of different horses.
When she claims she is unable to give IV meds, she doesn’t say this is because it is against her principals to subject a horse to this, but because her hands shake. Right. Got it.
Then she knows there are “4 girls” who give these meds. You know that how, BC? Those shaking hands, I guess …
This is the person who raised TC, who is closest to her day in & day out at the horse shows. Obviously she will have communicated many justifications for what she does. TC may reject all that … or she may accept it … after all, it’s her mother.
The fairytale in the publications is that TC was raised in horsemanship by her mother. The information made public by the lawsuit casts a whole new light on what that means.
[QUOTE=2bayboys;8301802]
And what about the “four young girls”, unnamed in the hearing documents, who participated in the riding and prep of the horse? Surely they know something as well?[/QUOTE]
Yeah … I’d bet $$ that one of the four was her daughter. Pure speculation, of course - that that is the genie BC has let out of the bottle with this lawsuit.
This. ^^^^^^^
[QUOTE=dags;8301902]What’s sad for these kids is that it’s likely this is the way it’s always been done in their lives. There’s a damn good chance that they don’t even know there’s another way. It’s as normal as sliced bread to them.
…[/QUOTE]
This. ^^^^^^^
[QUOTE=fourfillies;8303765]All for stiffer penalties not unsure of the value of testing outside of competition.
Instead:
1st timer: $10K and 6 months, horse, rider, trainer, owner/lessor
2nd time offender: $25K and a competition year, rider, trainer, owner/lessor
3rd time and you are out. Lifetime.
The $ defers the “regular” folks and the suspensions the big fish. If an ignorance is bliss owner/parent sues trainer when Mary Sue misses Pony Finals/Devon/Indoors for an infraction all the better. Self reinforcing.
If rider, trainer, owner/lessor is a USEF official /elected official they lose their license, first time a year, 2nd offense lifetime[/QUOTE]
It is not the money that will stop it - it is the suspensions. Double those times. Hurtful? Financially and otherwise? That’s the point, isn’t it?
If they won’t stop because it’s wrong, maybe they will stop because it isn’t possible to test positive and stay in business. But better yet, change the judging standards that reward these types of rounds.
If there is a fear that strengthening sanctions will lose financially important owners - LET THEM GO. If they are refusing to stop funding the problem, it’s time to sever their ties with the industry. That’s called meaningful cleanup.
College football had to do it back in the 80’s with the severe penalties, up to and including “the death penalty” that suspended football at a school altogether. Some programs suffered terribly, some never returned to full strength and some died altogether. But they did get rid of the most egregious violators (at the time).
Hunter show afficionados can talk about cleaning up their sport - or they can do it. It’s going to take people sticking their neck out and making sacrifices. Anyone in the hunter show world up for some sacrifices? 
It’s that or keep going around this merry-go-round and complaining about it.
[QUOTE=vineyridge;8303839]
Horse is not suspended, rider is not suspended, owner is not suspended, and the horse that was drugged to win in at least one class is showing this weekend as if nothing had happened and stands to win a whale of a lot of money.
Maybe the USEF should acquire some false teeth since it clearly has none of its own.[/QUOTE]
Yes. Yes. Yes. And where is the owner, Betsee Parker? Where is her concern for the welfare of her horse? But nope…status quo, another photo to go on her wall of shame.
[QUOTE=handwalk;8303871]
Take away the meds and we’ll end up like the Quarter Horse and Paint world. Horses won’t see food or water for days. Can’t have liverpools in the USET cuz the poor horses will stop for a drink. They’ll be tied with their head up for weeks. Sad to think about the hunters and eq is they have to be so damn quite now. If they could blink and shake their heads and have a gallop, they’d be happier and healthier.[/QUOTE]
At Arabian shows (in Canada any way) the steward goes through the barn regularly to make sure the horses have at least a half bucket of clean water at all times. If a horse is tied in its stall away from feed/water, or the bucket is empty/absent, the steward goes back to check. It isn’t hard to stop the above mentioned practices…easier than drug checking.
I am disappointed that she was able to get the stay of her suspension as it DOES matter what the timeline is. The punishment is meaningless if she only has to sit out shows after TC ages out. Missing the final championships is a price to be paid, the price is less if there is no discomfort in the application of the suspension.
[QUOTE=handwalk;8303855]
The ingredients are “legal” in limited qualities. Give enough of it and it’s over the “legal” limit as well as unhealthy.[/QUOTE]
I don’t think that’s an accurate explanation of the USEF rule. The rule states that anything given with the intent to calm is prohibited. That would seem to include Perfect Prep if given to calm. Inexplicably, some people have been told by USEF that giving Perfect Prep isn’t a violation. There is no LOGICAL reason why that would be true under the wording of the rule. Other people seem to have been told otherwise.
Because the ingredients in Perfect Prep don’t test (yet) the USEF would be hard pressed to sanction someone for using it unless they were caught red handed or admitted it.
Also the company that makes Perfect Prep is a major sponsor. Factor that into the USEF’s sometimes-interpretation of the rule as you will.
Oh I think that’s the easiest thing in the world to do. I used to give my horse a 2cc injection every week and I’m a klutz. So here’s how I think it would go - you carry the filled and capped hypodermic in a pocket, walk along side the horse, maybe have someone in front, back, and maybe side of you, pull the hypo out, stick horse in front of the shoulder, takes only a second to administer medicine, cap the hypo and put it in your pocket.
As I say, I have no vet tech experience at all and I got really good at it and quick. BC sounds like a virtuoso so I imagine this was not a challenge at all.
This assumes of course that GABA is given IM. IV would not be so easy!
(Just for the record, the shot was for my horse’s melanoma, definitely not performance enhancing and certainly didn’t affect his penchant for spooking at all. Plus we were at home, not at a show.)
ETA: Realized today that poor Inclusive probably started gobbling after all that tryptophan. Amazing he could even finish a round. :mad::(:no:
[QUOTE=CHT;8303896]
At Arabian shows (in Canada any way) the steward goes through the barn regularly to make sure the horses have at least a half bucket of clean water at all times. If a horse is tied in its stall away from feed/water, or the bucket is empty/absent, the steward goes back to check. It isn’t hard to stop the above mentioned practices…easier than drug checking.[/QUOTE]
I’ve seen this done even at Hunter/Jumper shows in Canada.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and my feeling is what Inclusive has endured over the years can only be justified as abuse .
Instant solution: Suspend the RP, the owner and the horse.
Owners need to have incentive (other than a moral one, which is obviously not sufficient) to make sure their horses show clean.
It is easy for owners to turn a blind eye, or say thay do, to drugging and cheating. But, if both the trainer and the owner had absolute liability for any positive drug test, you can bet that owners would be checking inside their trainers medicine trunks, and asking the hard questions.
It is a travesty that Dr. Betsee has not been set down. This is a smart lady who has been using trainers who drug horses for years. Shame on her for letting her employees take the hit. I have never particularly liked her, but now I have less than zero respect for her.
There are few in the business who want to win more than she does, and yet she, with her angelic yellow hair, pretends to be cleaner than clean.
Let’s put the real RP front and center and make her take the hit, instead of letting her minions do the dirty work for her.
The very rich ARE different from the merely rich.
The problem with this ‘situation’ is that the committees assigned the job of creating drug rules and penalties are comprised of owners and trainers. Seriously, who is going to pass rules which directly harm their own interests?
The USEF and USHJA are worse than Congress. And that is saying something.
[QUOTE=Lord Helpus;8303167]
Yes, Brigid was set down for the GABA infraction, but her appeal was denied. And the denial of the appeal was based on the testimony we have read, which was submitted in support of the civil case.
Re: the bolded language:
As I understand it, Tori was not happy with Ken’s schooling methods, so she called SS (I think) who then talked to Ken who told Scott “It’s me or that Colvin kid” (obviously I was not privy to any of these conversations, so I am taking great license with the verbiage ). Which is when and why Brigid, and Dr. B’s horses etc. were escorted off SS’s place, before Brigid even got home.
So, although Tori tried to stand up to Ken, the result was that she and her mom (and Dr B’s horses) were kicked out. If you were 17 and tried to stand up for something that did not feel right, and it backfired big time, would you feel comfortable about trying to make your voice heard again?
I am piecing tidbits together, to come up with a plausible scenario, but, as always, I could be wrong about everything.[/QUOTE]
Not sure it did “backfire”. Tori still has her rides and is with a new trainer with a reputation for many big wins with juniors. The downside is … ?
Just from this distance. 
Reading the transcript and in general the threads on here of the drug cases & the horse at the Hamptons disgusts me. The fact this sport is so messed out people risk not only their horses lives but their own. A horse with copious amounts of Gaba & PP pumped into it is most likely in no state to be competed, its dangerous. These people adminstering it aren’t medical professionals, they just keep topping up the dose until it works. Not a clue what the effects are on the horse. Same principal as using capsaicin (Assuming it was used as a leg sensitizer), that horse could flip out at rubbing the fence and potentially endanger both itself and the rider, not to mention if they are using it what else is put into the horse (Legal or not).
And the scariest thing is I guarantee the parents of these 2 examples know exactly whats happening, with SS mum being heavily involved in the sport & BC undoubtedly also the same. Whether they administered it or were in charge of it it doesn’t matter. Its the fact they risk their own child and the welfare of the horse for some cash and a nice ribbon. Giving BC the benefit of the doubt if she was oblivious and BP was more so involved, she cannot turn a blind eye to it any longer so why is TC still riding for BP? Yes it may sound good with all the horses and things being paid for her but long term? Affecting her reputation, putting the horses welfare & her own at risk? Is it really worth it when eventually she will most likely move on to showjumpers full time?
The sports corrupt & whoever wants to plead innocent in the BP/SR/BC case none of them have done anything about it. Is BP moving her horses and cutting ties with either SR or BC/TC? Most likely not. Is BC? No. Its sickening and the way its going I wouldn’t call doping horses up to their eyeballs a ‘sport’. Something seriously needs to change.
One rather interesting fact is that the entire USEF Jumper discipline (as are Reining and Eventing and Dressage and Vaulting and Driving, etc. from bottom to top is considered a Prohibited Substance Discipline and is covered by FEI Drugging Rules 2 (in its entirety), 3 [LESS rule 3.1 (Burden of Proof) AND 3.2.3
3.2.3 The facts established by a Decision of a court or professional disciplinary tribunal of competent jurisdiction which is not the subject of a pending appeal shall be irrebuttable evidence against the Person Responsible and/or member of the Support Personnel to whom the Decision pertained with regards to the factual findings unless it can be established that the Decision violated principles of natural justice.
, 4 (List of Drugs) and 8.2 (principles of fair hearing). So the entire Jumper discipline is pretty much covered by FEI Rules and Procedures down to the teeniest child, pony, and jump. This was mandated four or five years ago by the FEI. HOWEVER, the USEF did not adopt the FEI definition of Person Responsible to mean the rider; it still considers the trainer the PR.
Has the ceiling fallen in on low level jumpers? Do we find jumping less safe than hunters or equitation or that the horses don’t last as long? Are jumpers dinged as often for drugging as hunters and equitation horses? If hunters and /or equitation really wanted to clean itself up, it could easily change itself from a “therapeutic substance” discipline to a “prohibited substance” discipline or it could adopt the rules for Jumpers that are currently in effect in the USEF.
There is no express rule in the Therapeutic Substance Section that makes illegal any substance intended to enhance performance except the italicized language below which applies only to drugs, not substances. Unless a substance fits into the category of prohibited, it’s allowed. This is the rule for Hunters, not Jumpers.
For purposes of this rule, a forbidden substance is:
a. Any stimulant, depressant, tranquilizer, local anesthetic, psychotropic (mood
and/or behavior altering) substance, or drug which might affect the performance of a horse and/or pony (stimulants and/or depressants are defined as substances which stimulate or depress the cardiovascular, respiratory or central nervous systems), or any metabolite and/or analogue of any such substance or drug, except as expressly permitted by this rule.
b. Any corticosteroid present in the plasma of the horse/pony other than dexamethasone (see GR410.5b).
c. Any nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug in excess of one present in the plasma or urine of the horse/pony (GR411 does not apply); exception: salicylic acid.
d. Any substance (or metabolite and/or analogue thereof) permitted by this rule in excess of the maximum limit or other restrictions prescribed herein.
e. Any substance (or metabolite and/or analogue thereof), regardless of how harmless or innocuous it might be, which might interfere with the detection of any of the substances defined in (a), (b), © or (e) or quantification of substances permitted by this rule.
f. Any anabolic steroid (GR411 below does not apply).
Oh, and if you show the same horse at the same show in Hunters and Jumpers and/or Equitation, the Jumper Rules apply to you across the Board for that show. So we know that Jumper Rules won’t destroy Hunters or Equitation.
How to inject quickly? Taking off cooler and slide needle in. Seen it done. Quick and easy.
Maybe there should be asterisks placed next to Inclusive’s wins, the way MLB has with its cheaters.
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