Re today’s news that this year’s Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit, tested positive for betamethasone: As someone with more of a background in racing, I’m wondering about the relative lack of drug positives in eventing. At least in the relatively short time (about seven years) that I’ve been following eventing, I can’t remember a big-name rider being DQed or suspended for a positive on a horse. Thoughts?
Having been involved in both-- in the US there is less testing in eventing than racing at least outside of the FEI levels. But also I think it’s relatively rare at the higher levels to risk it. I do know people who have had positive tests but even those were mostly just stupid errors (mixing up feeds with Robaxin and Sulfatrim kind of stupid). That said most UL riders in every discipline have a very good idea of exactly what they CAN do legally and when, and of the difference between national and FEI rules. Most of the really questionable stuff I’ve seen has been from people who rarely or never compete at the FEI levels and especially the local trainer types.
Eventing is a high risk sport. It would take a fair dose of stupidity to use performance altering drugs when participating - though I suspect pure natural adrenaline is the drug of choice for most riders. Also, the financial incentive to cheat just isn’t there. Having said that, there was a case of 3 young riders in Florida a couple of years ago caught using recreational cocaine.
If you’re a racing person, you’ll know this better than me, but I believe that in racing, every winner gets tested, every time. Along with any horse with an unusual/concerning performance and whatever other random selection they may be doing.
At both the national/USEF and international/FEI levels of eventing, drug testers are only present at some of the events, and they are (mostly) testing randomly. There’s way, way less testing than in racing. As of right now, there’s only one person, in one (non-eventing) discipline, on the USEF ineligibility list for a meds violation. That’s…unusual. It probably speaks to a decline in participation and/or testing in 2020.
I do think eventing, which allows for success with a variety of types of horses and is partially objectively scored, lends itself less to behavior-altering drugging than some disciplines may. And I agree with @Highflyer1 that UL riders generally know the rules well. But I also suspect that if any discipline were tested as rigorously and consistently as racing is, you’d see more violations.
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I agree with all this. There is almost always more than one horse tested from every single race. I suspect if any FEI or USEF sport was tested as frequently, we would see more positives.
Most positives in racing are not from performance enhancing drugs given specifically to boost race performance; while that does happen occasionally, generally the positives are from people pushing the withdrawal times on legal, therapeutic medications. I imagine you would see a similar pattern at FEI sanctioned events of horses were regularly tested, but I do think the differences in racing v. sport horse disciplines mean there is less advantage for FEI riders to push the windows.
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I’ve been out of racing for a while, and I just tried to find the rules on how many horses get tested, but I can’t find anything that states it simply. I think it varies by state/jurisdiction. It used to be the top three finishers in every race, plus the beaten favorite (if that horse finished out of the top three). Maybe there are more, at the stewards’ discretion. In any case–it does make sense that since there are so many more racehorses being tested on a routine basis, that might explain the difference in number of drug positives, versus eventing. (I know it’s not a side-by-side comparison, due to the numbers involved.)
NTRA requests the winner is tested uniformly. Claims almost always are tested. Otherwise it varies by jurisdiction.
There are about 40,000 races a year in North America. (Covid had it down to 31,000 last year because of mandatory track closures). I think people forget the massive difference in the sizes of the industries. I don’t know how many FEI or USEA recognized divisions are held each year, but I feel pretty confident it’s nowhere near 40,000.
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Just to note it wasn’t cocaine, it was legally prescribed ADHD medication that they hadn’t applied for a therapeutic use waiver to use.
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Thank you for that. My mistake.
(Edited to remove additional comment)
Money. The possibility of financial gain is significantly higher in racing. It’s almost non existent in eventing.
The financial consequences of positive drug tests are greater in eventing, too. If you get suspended, it’s very likely that you will loose the ride on at least some of your horses. In a sport that operates with such close margins, it all counts.
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Further to this, there is also potentially a financial incentive for a horse to lose as much as to win. If a horse wins, the horses connections get money. If a long shot wins, a lot of bettors get money. It’s a powerful incentive to drug a horse to NOT perform as much as to perform better. I wouldn’t say there’s any such incentive in eventing.
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To clarify my original post, by “drug positives,” I’m really talking about therapeutic medications that are legal for training, but might show up as trace amounts in post-race tests. I’m drawing a distinction between something that might linger past a 14-day window to clear a horse’s system versus “doping” to manipulate a result. With the amount of testing that goes on in racing, and the sophistication of the labs these days, I think racing is generally well-policed–it’s just that in the relatively short time I’ve been following eventing, I couldn’t recall any big-name eventers being sanctioned for medication positives at the four- or five-star level.
On a slightly different tack, here’s a good column about how to talk to your non-horsey friends about the current brouhaha.
I’ve seen plenty of drug testers at horse trials over the years. Horses are tested randomly - it might be a winning horse, or a horse that didn’t place at all. I would assume racing has different drug standards than eventing.
Why less drug in eventing then in racing? There is SIGNIFICANTLY less money at stake in eventing than in racing.
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