Jeff Mullins Horse Tests positive for Milkshake

[DickHertz]

This means his reduced suspension for mepivicaine earlier this year will be re-instated. Mullins is a cheater.

From the Bloodhorse

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Trainer Jeff Mullins, already on probation following a 20-day suspension for a Class 2 medication violation earlier this year, could face an additional 70 days after being accused in a second California Horse Racing board complaint.

According to a CHRB statement released Aug. 15, one of Mullins’ horses exceeded the regulatory threshold for total carbon dioxide in a blood sample taken prior to an Aug. 3 race and tested by the Ken Maddy equine laboratory at the University of California-Davis.

In January, the agency, following an administrative law judge’s recommendation, slapped Mullins with a 90-day suspension stemming from a 2006 mepivacaine case, a Class 2 violation. Mullins served 20 days, with the balance stayed by the CHRB under the condition that the trainer have no further violations for a one-year period.

The CHRB now alleges that the Mullins-trained Pathbreaking exceeded the regulatory threshold of 37.0 milliliters for TCO2, a Class 3 violation. Pathbreaking finished third in the third race Aug. 3 at Del Mar.

Rick Arthur, the CHRB’s equine medical director, confirmed that Mullins would face the full penalty in the mepivacaine decision in addition to any further discipline he’s subject to for violating the TCO2 standard, commonly referred to as “milkshaking.”

“He’s got a problem,” Arthur said. “(The decision) said he cannot have any violations for one year.”

Del Mar stewards have scheduled hearing Aug. 20 to consider the disqualification of Pathbreaking and partial redistribution of the purse. A hearing for Mullins is pending.

“He’s got some options,” Arthur noted. “He can go before a hearing officer or the board of stewards.”

Mullins’ earlier suspension, from Feb. 15 through March 5, came after an administrative law judge found him in violation of three CHRB rules in connection with mepivacaine, a local anesthetic commonly used in equine veterinary procedures. The horse, Robs Coin, was found to have 30 nanongrams of mepivacaine per milliliter of urine in his system, exceeding the regulatory limit of 10 nanograms.

[Chiniko]

Hate to say it but… what’s new. Seems like he can’t go a year or 6 months without one.

[Nikki]

Could you explain to me what a Milkshake is and what it does for the horse? I know that’s it isn’t a tasty drink.:lol:

[Chiniko]

It’s a large amount of baking soda, etc tubed into the stomach that slows the production of lactic acid and thus in theory enabling a horse to run further before muscle fatigue occurs

[Evalee_Hunter]

[QUOTE=Chiniko;3455198]
It’s a large amount of baking soda, etc tubed into the stomach that slows the production of lactic acid and thus in theory enabling a horse to run further before muscle fatigue occurs[/QUOTE]

That’s the benign side of it. Doesn’t it also put the horse at risk of massive problems, up to & including sudden death while racing?

[Glimmerglass]

There Will Be Milkshakes:

Exhibit A: A One Rocket trained by Greg Martin for IEAH in 2003. (Yep the same IEAH of Big Brown fame.) Martin administered A One Rocket a milkshake and he won a race by ten lengths at Aqueduct the Mob was tied into that nefarious activity:

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan indicted 17 people in the case, and of the 16 still living (Marvin Meyerowitz died last May in an apartment fire), nine have now pleaded guilty, including trainer Greg Martin, who admitted to helping fix a race at Aqueduct on December 18, 2003, when he administered a milkshake to A One Rocket before he won the first race.

"As federal prosecutors tell it, New York City’s horse tracks have been crawling with race-fixing mobsters who turned an out-of-the-money nag into the second coming of Secretariat with the help of a performance-enhancing brew administered nasally via garden hose.

Winning “by a nose” takes on a whole new meaning. The ingenuity that made a ten-length winner of A One Rocket in the first at Aqueduct on December 18, 2003, was part of a broader gambling racket that showed similar devilish creativity . . . .".

• Editorial in The New York Daily News

As for the enhanced performance of a milkshake - people might think the horse was already due for a solid win, right? Not on your life: BloodHorse January 18, 2005

The horse, (perhaps appropriately) named A One Rocket, was a $7,500 claim by Martin out of a Dec. 13 race he’d won by three-quarters of a length. Five days later, racing at the same six-furlong distance and jumped up to a $12,500 tag, he won by 10 lengths, improving his time by two full seconds. His Beyer Speed Figure jumped from 75 to 103.

All of that extra horse power, as cited, doesn’t come without a huge cost to the health of the horse.

[DickHertz]

[QUOTE=Nikki^;3455020]
Could you explain to me what a Milkshake is and what it does for the horse? I know that’s it isn’t a tasty drink.:lol:[/QUOTE]

Baking Soda
MSM
DMG
Creatine

All mixed with water and if given “correctly” it is put directly into the stomach via tube.

[Chiniko]

[QUOTE=Evalee Hunter;3455451]
That’s the benign side of it. Doesn’t it also put the horse at risk of massive problems, up to & including sudden death while racing?[/QUOTE]

Suddend death, aka heart attack, are a rare but very possible concern. Yep.

[Drvmb1ggl3]

In the first case of a trainer being caught for milkshaking in GB, the BHA seem intent on setting an example. Matt Gingel loses his licence for 2 years and a $4,000 fine.

From the RP.

MATT GINGELL has been warned off for two years after becoming the first person in British racing found guilty of a doping offence involving sodium bicarbonate, widely known as a ‘milkshake’.

Gingell, who relinquished his training licence a fortnight ago, admitted offences under rule 53 - dealing with positive drug tests - and rule 200, which covers any attempt to administer a prohibited substance to affect a horse’s performance, when he appeared at a BHA inquiry on Thursday.

The test on his mare, Kassuta, was taken before she ran in a juvenile novice hurdle at Fakenham in November 2007, in which she finished third.

Earlier that year the sport’s regulator increased pre-race testing, and while not saying so explicitly, it was widely assumed they were primarily aiming at finding evidence of milkshaking, which reduces a horse’s production of lactic acid and enables it to run for longer without feeling pain. It can also mask the presence of other performance-enhancing drugs.

Gingell, who will not be allowed to go racing as a disqualified person, was also ordered to pay £2,500 towards the cost of the hearing.

[LaurieB]

@Drvmb1ggl3;4164056

In the first case of a trainer being caught for milkshaking in GB, the BHA seem intent on setting an example. Matt Gingel loses his licence for 2 years and a $4,000 fine.

Wouldn’t it be nice if U.S. racing authorities grew some balls and started responding in a similar manner?

[vineyridge]

I’ve just been reading some equine exercise physiology/nutrition textbooks on Google books, and it would appear from some scientific research quoted in them that milkshaking is voodoo science.

[Pronzini]

@vineyridge;4164397

I’ve just been reading some equine exercise physiology/nutrition textbooks on Google books, and it would appear from some scientific research quoted in them that milkshaking is voodoo science.

They are also not that big a deal relatively speaking. In the good ol’ days everyone seems to want to go back to, milkshaking was commonplace and no one batted an eye or even thought of it as “cheating”.

[SleepyFox]

[QUOTE=Pronzini;4164522]
They are also not that big a deal relatively speaking. In the good ol’ days everyone seems to want to go back to, milkshaking was commonplace and no one batted an eye or even thought of it as “cheating”.[/QUOTE]

Exactly. In fact, in the past milkshakes were administered by vets pre-race and vets would come up with their own special recipies.