If it’s legal it doesn’t have to be at a non usef show.
You have misunderstood the D&M rules. Anything given as a “performance enhancing” substance is illegal, whether it will show up on a urine or blood test or not.
I point this out because 1. I’m so tired of people publicizing incorrect information. 2. This was precisely the mistake at the heart of Rob Gage’s advice and (if I read right), the basis for Meupatdoes beginning this thread. If I have read right, again, it’s also the basis for Rob Gage issuing a mea culpa four years after the fact. And it’s also the basis for folks here being unimpressed: A top trainer like Gage must have known that his publicly-given advice amounted to cheating, breaking this bit of D&M rules… and he didn’t give a sh!t because Perfect Prep “won’t test” and, for the worst of HunterWorld, that’s synonymous with “legal.” In addition, this is not a new rule, nor overly-complex concept.
Once again, “Won’t test” and “Legal” are not synonyms. Anyone and everyone should know and embrace that fact.
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Thank you.
me: [ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“medium”,“data-attachmentid”:10051636}[/ATTACH]
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Another one who does not need to tube-a-palooza and should really be ashamed of himself for pimping a product like this when I suspect he knows FULL WELL that it’s a shortcut to proper training AT BEST and closer to cheating at worse.
https://www.vet-way.com/chillax/
“Chillax is the best product on the market today by far to keep my horses focused and confident when competing .”
Philip Dutton
(emphasis mine)
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I’m thinking in reality.
In reality, the rule is as @mvp states. That too many people don’t care about rules doesn’t mean the rules don’t really exist.
I do always enjoy knowing who understands the rules but doesn’t gaf though.
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“must have known” is a pretty big assumption. There are plenty of people who only know what they need to know. You can walk around horse shows and ask multitudes of people if PP is legal and they will say yes…because they haven’t delved any deeper than that. No nefarious ideas about cheating or the even a clue as to the breaking of the ‘spirit and intent of the rule’ that most of us here are concerned with. They get the information they need and move on.
I mean, I had to press HARD on the D&M to get them to say it broke the spirit and intent. It took about 8 emails back and forth until I got there. If I had stopped when I got the first answer (none of the ingredients are banned so it’s legal) without adding direct information on why I was using it, I never would have received the spirit and intent answer from D&M. I can’t imagine many trainers going that far. Perhaps they should all know it, but it’s kind of human nature to get the information you need and move on.
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to be fair, some of this stuff is … vague at best.
What if I have a horse who does not have a cresty neck, but I think he is prone to muscle soreness and a bit of spookiness that I think might be associated with a Mg deficiency? So if he gets Quiessence every day because of that (possibly perceived) issue, regardless of whether I am showing or not, have a violated the intent of the rule?
If the prevailing opinion is that I haven’t (full disclosure, I’m quite positive I have done that even if I can’t recall exactly who/what/when), how do you define a tube of PP before a show as different?
Imagine you are explaining this to someone entirely unfamiliar with horse showing at all: My horse gets a mineral supp at x mg/day, daily versus he gets 5X that dosage (or some variable) periodically. Both are administered orally. Now explain why one is perceived differently than the other. Maybe that argument revolves around the other ingredients, but I can see how explaining this looks like dancing on the head of a pin kind of scenario
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I think there’s a pretty clear difference between I give my horse a magnesium supplement to address deficiencies or exertion and I give my horse a tube of perfect prep so I can show it.
As the rider pointed out above, she used perfect prep because it made her horse calm enough for her to show, a clear violation of the rules. She said it herself.
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Are we sure this is Actually Rob, and not someone just messing around? Seems seriously odd!
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Yeah, it’s him. Unless he has been pretending to be Rob Gage for six years now haha
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yes…
I’m just coming back to this thread. Serious question, where is the “performance enhancing substance” line drawn? If my horse gets a Legends injection a few days before competition does that go against the spirit of the rule? Hock injections every spring? I mean, my older horse certainly banged out better leg yields because of those treatments. I imagine many us are giving our horses supplements/injections/treatments meant to enhance performance. That’s sort of the whole point.
And if I’m using smartcalm paste with no prohibited substances to ease my horse’s anxiety about standing alone at the trailer, how is that all of a sudden more “performance enhancing” than a legends injection? I’m genuinely curious about the intent of the rule.
Furthermore, what happens if someone goes to the steward or emails USEF to report a spirit-of-the-rules violation? If you take video of someone giving a few tubes of perfect prep before their hunter round for no discernible reason other than to enhance performance will the powers that be take action?
Exactly. …
Dutton is also co founder of the company. Very disappointed to see him pushing a calming product.
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It’s “Legend” (no “s”). I don’t know why but that makes me itchy when I see it misspelled as plural. 
I feel the same way about “Lyme” being misspelled with an “s.” Back to your regularly scheduled program.
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Right about “performance enhancing”. Legend, Adequan, hock and back injections, epidurals for the back, foot numbing- much not testable.
This is the same old line of thinking that always comes up. there is no therapeutic reason to give a horse a calming paste. It’s solely to take the edge off so they perform better. There are therapeutic reasons for hock injections, supplements, etc. you can’t train your horse into comfortable joints as they age… you CAN rid most horses of anxiety with training and exposure
that said, you can’t penalize off of the spirit and intent, so we have substances that are legal to give, but not legal to give.
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