Those are pretty much the same as European racing, per much the article that you posted. There don’t seem to be as many in the FEI threshold list, though, IIRC.
[QUOTE=OverandOnward;7225509]
What I would rather know is how many horses were in the entire population of the group being sampled. That is, 7,307 competitors were tested out of how many total competitors?
Keeping in mind that the same horses go to multiple competitions, so that isn’t really the number of individuals, just the number of entries. That’s another big factor in what the stats could say.
And even those numbers, if we had them, are not enough information to really understand what goes on with reserpine. I personally don’t think the statistics on all the tests say very much at all about the Burghley samples, because of the way the samples are being done - just imo.[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure what difference it would make to know the total population. The denominator is correct – positive tests per horses tested. Positive tests per total population is meaningless. What would be useful information would be determining whether the difference (from 0 to 1 total positives over several years to 2 positives in a single year) were statistically significant.
Of course I can’t find the link now, but Eventing Nation had something on their FB feed about there being an investigation to try and track down where the drugs came from. For both horses. GOOD!
Clifton Eventing put out a statement that said they were going to do an investigation. I will say that they had two statements in there that made my eyes roll a bit. The first was “A week ago, none of us had actually heard of Reserpine”. That strains credibility quite a bit considering this is a professional operation. The second was that the plant that is used for reserpine “It’s in commonly-found grassland and hedgerows plants in the UK,”. The last I knew the plants used for reserpine were tropical. I don’t think England is tropical. If it was so common n England would a lot of horses be testing positive.
I don’t think Clifton Eventing is doing themselves any favors with this kind of statement. It sounds like Ben Johnson’s “someone put it in my water bottle” or Barry Bonds and many other athletes saying “I just took the herbal supplement my trainer gave me. I didn’t know it had PED’s in it.”
It does make sense to me since a plant that “might” produce a reaction to the reserpine test does grow wild in GB. No one has yet said if vinca will react as reserpine. I do agree about the lack of positives from other European horses, and would put my excuse as a contamination in supplements or manufacture of supplements.
Of course the owner DOES feel obliged to investigate. Any owner would.
I’m going to put my money on they gave the horses reserpine to put them on stall rest and thought it would be out of the system long before BUrghley. That’s a much simpler explanation versus cross contaminations, supplements, etc.
There are two decisions from 2012 in which the respective PRs (an eventer and a show jumper) used the contaminated feed defense to explain why morphine was present in their horses’ samples. In the eventing case, the rider hired a team of scientists to ‘prove’ his claims.
Both can be read here. Just click on ‘Mouse’ and ‘Bingo’.
The Mouse decision – this is the eventer – is an interesting, lively read. The PR hires experts and alleges that morphine was found in both the horse’s feed and a supplement. Much sloppy science ensues from the PR’s experts. When the allegedly contaminated feed is tested by the Horse Forensics Lab, no morphine is found. There’s also some noise about the horse having poppies in its field, and the amount of morphine found in the horse doesn’t fit with the amount of morphine that would be ingested via feed/supplements.
In the other case, the PR claims the horse has never seen a vet, and that the morphine came from feed. Her defense is less-than-rigourous, she says she’s not familiar with FEI anti-doping rules, and then she admits that four years earlier, she’d been suspended for having a horse test positive for bute. That horse’s name? Bad Intention.
One point the FEI makes repeatedly in both cases is that it’s not enough for the PR to prove that feed/supplements were contaminated. The PR also needs to demonstrate the link between the alleged contamination and the positive test result.
In other words, if the PR says ‘We tested Magic Dust and it contains morphine’, the PR also has to document that the horse was, in fact, given Magic Dust, from that same batch, so that it would test equivalently to what was found in the sample. This would not let the PR off the hook but it would allow for a mitigation of the two-year suspension.
(Mitigation also happens if you’re from a very rich Middle East nation and want to go to the Olympics in showjumping.)
[QUOTE=FitToBeTied;7227670]
I’m going to put my money on they gave the horses reserpine to put them on stall rest and thought it would be out of the system long before BUrghley. That’s a much simpler explanation versus cross contaminations, supplements, etc.[/QUOTE]
You are mixing up common US usage of a drug which has very limited usage in the UK - it’s quite possible that the owner et al would not recognize the drug under the name “reserpine”
I’m more surprised that the FEI does not release (to the rider) a detailed report on the blood sample including observations & drug amounts & assay method & detection limits etc 
[QUOTE=JER;7227733]
There are two decisions from 2012 in which the respective PRs (an eventer and a show jumper) used the contaminated feed defense to explain why morphine was present in their horses’ samples. In the eventing case, the rider hired a team of scientists to ‘prove’ his claims.
Both can be read here. Just click on ‘Mouse’ and ‘Bingo’.
The Mouse decision – this is the eventer – is an interesting, lively read. The PR hires experts and alleges that morphine was found in both the horse’s feed and a supplement. Much sloppy science ensues from the PR’s experts. When the allegedly contaminated feed is tested by the Horse Forensics Lab, no morphine is found. There’s also some noise about the horse having poppies in its field, and the amount of morphine found in the horse doesn’t fit with the amount of morphine that would be ingested via feed/supplements.
In the other case, the PR claims the horse has never seen a vet, and that the morphine came from feed. Her defense is less-than-rigourous, she says she’s not familiar with FEI anti-doping rules, and then she admits that four years earlier, she’d been suspended for having a horse test positive for bute. That horse’s name? Bad Intention.
One point the FEI makes repeatedly in both cases is that it’s not enough for the PR to prove that feed/supplements were contaminated. The PR also needs to demonstrate the link between the alleged contamination and the positive test result.
In other words, if the PR says ‘We tested Magic Dust and it contains morphine’, the PR also has to document that the horse was, in fact, given Magic Dust, from that same batch, so that it would test equivalently to what was found in the sample. This would not let the PR off the hook but it would allow for a mitigation of the two-year suspension.
(Mitigation also happens if you’re from a very rich Middle East nation and want to go to the Olympics in showjumping.)[/QUOTE]
However both did get the period of one ineligibility reduced by half. Also if you want to read how crazy high they take personal responsibility read the judgement on Angela Covert Lawerence (in the rider drug tests)
[QUOTE=alto;7227805]
I’m more surprised that the FEI does not release (to the rider) a detailed report on the blood sample including observations & drug amounts & assay method & detection limits etc [/QUOTE]
The FEI does do this if/when the PR requests it.
[QUOTE=StrawberryFields;7225528]
the whole thing is really just a shame if he is innocent or not because either way, isn’t his career and ability to compete going to be effected?[/QUOTE]
That’s an interesting question. It will be (is) extremely painful during the time the rider is not allowed to compete. That’s a major hit to the rider’s income as well as loss of face and spotlight time.
But after that period concludes, it’s up to the public and the sponsors how they respond. If they decide to believe in and support the rider, it may not make much difference long term. Of course it’s right to do the investigations … but the survival strategy may be to say all the right things and just wait it out. In time, this will fade into history. Although in this case, because it interfered with a winning streak, history will be a bit more memorable.
There are some BNR’s and almost-B NR’s competing now at 4* level that have an action of some kind in their past. Most people probably do not know or don’t remember, or don’t care.
[QUOTE=vineyridge;7227661]
It does make sense to me since a plant that “might” produce a reaction to the reserpine test does grow wild in GB. No one has yet said if vinca will react as reserpine. I do agree about the lack of positives from other European horses, and would put my excuse as a contamination in supplements or manufacture of supplements.
Of course the owner DOES feel obliged to investigate. Any owner would.[/QUOTE]
http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/museum-and-garden/garden/world-medicine-beds/vinca-major
It is used as an anti depresent to.
One organization 2 top horses, that are not stabled to gether, same stuff.
Give me a break. They should investigate the organization, for possible organized doping.
Sound like Armstrong to me.
Well in the end a groom will take the blame, as usual and the shining knights in their white armour will continue, as usual.
Cross contamination, pasture, feed, yaiks, whats next the holy ghost ?
Half a million at stake …
[QUOTE=JER;7228166]
The FEI does do this if/when the PR requests it.[/QUOTE]
Apparantly Clifton is/was waiting on the data - I expected it to be immediately available …
It is possible to have tropical plants in the UK–fuschia, which won’t winter over even in Tennessee, is used for hedgerows there. I’ve seen some pretty tropical plants in northernmost Ireland–it’s like Seattle, winters aren’t that harsh. Not that this means I believe the “plants in the field” defense. I don’t know how your pastures look, but mine are fairly weed-free.
Interesting piece from NZ;
[h=1]Reason: Paget out of his league in murky elite [/h][h=2][/h] MARK REASON
Last updated 05:00 23/10/2013
DRUG SHOCK: Jock Paget with horse Clifton Promise which tested positive to a banned substance.
[h=2][/h]
OPINION: Jock Paget, the winner of Badminton and Burghley, will now be called a drug cheat after his horse tested positive for the calming agent reserpine.
But this is a far more interesting case than the cycle of lies told by professional conman Lance Armstrong.
This is a story with a cast of characters from a Shardlake novel, part detective story, part thriller.
Paget, himself, comes with a host of references. Fellow Kiwi eventer Andrew Nicholson calls him “a very genuine person” and does not believe there is any way Paget would have willingly doped his horse.
Nicholson’s word carries some weight because his two horses, Avebury and Nereo, finished second and third at Burghley and will now be promoted to the top two spots if Paget is found guilty.
So who done it, gov, if Paget was not responsible, although we cannot rule him out? How did a drug that was originally obtained from Indian snakeroot and used by Gandhi for meditative processes, find its way into the bloodstream of Paget’s horse Clifton Promise?
That is the question to which Paget desperately needs to find the answer and the question that will cast suspicion on many innocent people.
The search is broadened by the fact that Clifton Pinot, a horse under the same ownership, has also now tested positive for reserpine.
Clifton Pinot is ridden by the Aussie trainer Kevin McNab, the bloke who took young Jock on when he was just a builder’s apprentice.
As Kiwis, or surrogate Kiwis, it is only right that we have a dastardly ocker to point the finger at.
McNab has been a mentor for many a horse and rider, but now has his own ambitions to represent Australia at the Olympics and ambition can taint the soul.
Eventing horses are dosed as a matter of course. They are given natural herbal supplements to calm them before the dressage, a discipline at which Clifton Promise excelled.
Nicholson says that all the supplements in the horse’s feed are the most important part of the preparation apart from the work with the rider.
The horses are given illegal substances out of competition, but these are stopped over three months before competition.
Nicholson told LiveSport radio, “Jock’s been caught out with this and it’s a tough time for him. It’s an awful lot of pressure on him and hopefully sample ‘B’ will be different but it seems a pretty long shot. He is very new in the big league. Possibly he’s been a little naive.”
Now just what did Nicholson mean by that? Does he have doubts about McNab? Has Nicholson taken some dodgy supplements in from a snake oil salesman? Or is Frances Stead, the owner of the horse, a figure of suspicion?
She is certainly another fascinating character.
Stead told LiveSport, “I know very little about it [reserpine]. I’ve never tried to understand the details on the vet’s side.”
This is strange testimony. Stead has an MA honours degree in chemistry from Oxford University and spent a good part of her professional career in marketing at consumer goods company Proctor and Gamble.
Yet she has almost no knowledge of reserpine and takes very little interest in what is given to her horses.
Really? Stead goes on to say that she is 100 per cent sure of Paget’s innocence and makes great play of the fact that she is not 99 point something per cent, but 100 per cent.
The only way I would be sure of a sportsman’s innocence is if I knew who had administered the drug. Stead then says she sees no reason why a sedative would be administered to a horse.
She should know, having earlier this year described Clifton Promise as, “very quirky and complicated … he can get quite stressed and worried about it”.
Nicholson would tell her that stressed-out, strong-headed horses need calming. But Stead instead points the finger at the 500 people who have access to the stabling area, any of who could “do something unpleasant”.
With Paget and Clifton Promise both described by Stead as tall and handsome, I am now unsure about whether we are straying into a Dick Francis novel, with the rogue nobbler from another stable, or a jodhpur-ripper by Jilly Cooper.
And then there’s the Federation Equestre Internationale, the body responsible for finding the guilty parties and administering justice. The president of the FEI is Princess Haya.
I thought New Zealand was a global force at conflicts of interests, but FEI is monumental.
President Haya, who just happened to build the FEI an opulent new building, is a wife of Sheikh Mohammed. The sheikh’s endurance horses have repeatedly tested positive for anabolic steroids, a Godolphin trainer has just been banned for dosing horses and now an assortment of 120 drugs, destined for the sheikh’s British endurance horses, has been seized at Stansted.
The sheikh, a world champion at endurance riding, did cop a six-month ban (how could he know, he has so many horses, was the absurd defence by plutocracy), a sanction that caused the outraged Princess President to say that the issue was used to “injure and damage the reputations of me and my family”.
Sport has now been so tainted by drug scandals that there is a common assumption of guilt. As Stead acknowledges, this is literally true of the FEI, and so it is up to the rider to prove his or her innocence after a positive test.
Stead is adamant that the entire Clifton team is innocent and she has now employed a scientist in order to determine how reserpine could have got into her horses’ systems. The hope is that a whodunit could turn into a whatdunnit.
I suspect poor Jock is out of his league. He says, “I haven’t even heard of it [reserpine], I have never done anything with that sort of stuff. I’m absolutely dumbfounded by it all. You don’t plan for this. You hear about it happening to other people and think ‘shit, I’m glad that will never happen to me’ but here we are.”
Or as they say at the Federation Equestre Internationale: “merde”. But who is the ‘merderer’? That is the fascinating question.
- © Fairfax NZ News
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/9313539/Reason-Paget-out-of-his-league-in-murky-elite
With Paget and Clifton Promise both described by Stead as tall and handsome, I am now unsure about whether we are straying into a Dick Francis novel, with the rogue nobbler from another stable, or a jodhpur-ripper by Jilly Cooper.
For some reason, I got stuck at this sentence. Hilarious. :lol:
:lol:
NZ News so nailed it.
[QUOTE=Equibrit;7230429]
Or as they say at the Federation Equestre Internationale: "merde". But who is the 'merderer'? That is the fascinating question.
- © Fairfax NZ News
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/9313539/Reason-Paget-out-of-his-league-in-murky-elite[/QUOTE]
Priceless. I want this guy to write the movie. :winkgrin:
[QUOTE=JER;7214661]
Reserpine lowers blood pressure.
Lowering blood pressure in a horse could reduce bleeding.
Clifton Promise was stopped on course at Burghley for suspected bleeding, as was Paget’s other horse.
There’s an explanation for this. Let’s hear it.[/QUOTE]
Thank heavens THIS is not correct! :lol:
