It would have been a FEI two year suspension for the rider had he not proven the cause of the positive result.
Frankly why have CDI barn security if the contamination can be done so carelessly in house ?
That sounds far fetched to me.
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Since it sounds as if this is not the first case where groom’s urine has been blamed for positive drugs tests in horses, you’d think the big barns would send out a “do not pee in the stalls” order to all their staff. I mean these nice barns must have plumbing, and even if you are caught short, how many times are you going to need to pee in the stall? In the same stall?
On the other hand, what are the odds that your horse is being doped with the exact same antipsychotic that your groom happens to be on? I would expect recreational drugs like cocaine or cannabis to be more widely used and more potential for “contamination.”
Although of course if the antipsychotic is doing its job long term, maybe no-one not even the head trainer knew the groom was on Abilify.
Anyhow if I was running this kind of barn I’d be sending out a general “do not pee in stalls and especially if you are on any medical or recreational pharmaceuticals that could test.”
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That’s interesting. So they test the bedding instead of collecting a sample directly from the horse? I’ve never heard of it being done that way before.
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No…the horse is assumed to have ingested it from eating things in the stall that were contaminated by the groom peeing.
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It happens all the time. It’s so easy for a horse to be contaminated with trace amounts of drugs, and grooms regularly piss like crazy in the stalls.
i used to get so mad I once threatened to fire anyone I caught pissing in a stall…but then had to walk it back when I realized I would have to fire everybody.
Not just grooms peeing, but riders too. Once when working the Keeneland sales I walked in on a legendary farm owner peeing away…
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Why? Do you think grooms smoke dope and snort coke regularly?
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For it not to be from the groom peeing in the stall they would have had to picked a drug that they felt was working and then have this groom go get a prescription for it so they had that cover in case the horse tested positive.
I have peed in many stalls, so I am thinking it is not rare for a groom to do the same.
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Yup. And also given it at such low doses or so long before compeittion that there was only a minute trace on the test.
I’ve read that coke use used to be pretty common in the higher levels of show jumping, and certainly it was big around race tracks. No idea if that’s the case now. But I did read recently of a horse testing positive for cocaine and it being blamed on previous occupants of a stall at a fair grounds.
I understand coke has energizing properties 
so it could fit into a high energy environment.
Oooh. Yeah. My brain definitely didn’t quite get there. That makes sense then.
Wellll… having been a groom and having spent time with plenty of other grooms- yes. I know a lot of professionals (not just grooms) who would consider coke to be a core part of their diets.
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Sorry, but how often is this one groom pissing in this horse’s stall that he’s getting a contact buzz from eating the bedding? And how much piss soaked bedding does the horse have to eat to test?
It still sounds far fetched. One, that this particular groom is peeing so much in this horses’s tall to make enough bedding soaked, and that the horse ate enough of the bedding.
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It can happen. We had a (racing) client it happened to. In this case it was the horse’s owner, he did it only once, and the drug was part of his cancer treatment. The horse was disqualified but the owner and trainer were not set down/fined.
If I’m reading this correctly, this is very odd dosing 3x daily and liquid suspension for an adult?
:nonchalance:
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Well …
… if you need to pee often, and there isn’t a convenient restroom of some kind around, and a stall is fairly private …
:yes: 
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I think the idea that CDI barns are “fancy” is erroneous, lots of them are temporary stalls sandwiched together under tents. Having worked as a groom at national and international championships, including many CDI’s, and having competed at national and international championships I can attest to the fact that often washrooms are quite distant from the barns, and that when they’re closer they’re often non-operational from time to time throughout competitions. I too have peed in stalls, horseboxes, and trailers when the time it would take to find a functioning bathroom was time which was unavailable.
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In this virus environment I confess to using a stall at a show; our barn area had a porto-potty and even with a mask I was not up for shutting myself in there.
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I have to say, having contaminated many a stall, trailer and even a bush here or there (as frequently as nature called that day), I had NO IDEA that this could affect anything a horse ate. Obviously I’ve avoided the feed/hay area. And even followed the example of kitty-kats everywhere and made sure it’s in a shavings-covered hole, for both better appearance and smell. So while I give the benefit of the doubt that the science did point to the groom, it’s an eye-opening situation.
Maybe it’s time to figure out a solution that involves a bucket? With shavings in it? Academy sells a potty-seat lid for a bucket, so that would be an upgrade right there.
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I’ve peed on a trailer or stall a time or two in my life. I’m surprised a horse would eat urinated upon bedding but that’s horses for you I guess. Maybe laid down on the bedding and took transmission through the skin that way?
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