That’s fascinating, thank you! Two USEF quotes in there struck me, first "The USEF has not received human drug testing results for any eventing competitions this fall. Any speculation as to positives for cocaine is unfounded." (Emphasis theirs.) Interesting because they’re not saying the tests were negative, but that they didn’t have results yet and any speculation at the time was unfounded. Quite possibly somebody was expecting to get popped when the testers showed up.
Second that “The FEI has hired a new company to do their testing, and the amount of testing will increase.” Looks like we’re on notice.
Kind of makes you wonder if the FEI has some information that made it decide to do more testing. And I wonder if the “new company” referred to is located in the Americas or Europe and travels here–or to other countries around the world.
Anyone else notice some of the featured advertising when they clicked the link to this Eventing Nation article about speculation concerning riders popping positive for cocaine being unfounded?
When I clicked it and read through it, an ad for Treadstep caught my eye… It featured HSB. Oops.
I am not competing in any discipline, anymore, so I don’t know what the “darlings” of eventing or any other FEI discipline do at their parties, before or after competition in private or with their colleagues.
It is bizarre that USEF felt the need to deny rumors of cocaine use
Cocaine is “snorted” or injected or inhaled. The stimulants involved would be in pill or capsule form
I am not competing in any discipline, anymore, so I don’t know what the “darlings” of eventing or any other FEI discipline currently do at their parties, before or after competition, in private or with their colleagues.
I find it bizarre that USEF felt the need to deny the cocaine rumors, as if speed is somehow better.Cocaine has a medical usage as do the amphetamines that were detected in these peoples bloodstream(s), though one would be even more hard pressed to find an excuse to use Cocaine in competition
Cocaine is “snorted” or injected or inhaled. The stimulants ingested would come in pill or capsule form either of which can be altered to be “snorted”. If one was a casual observer and saw someone “snorting” a substance it would be quite likely that they would assume it was cocaine.
What an odd situation.
Were any of these people likely to be chosen for a U.S. team in the next 2 years? Perhaps HSB?
Is JB the rider that works very hard at taking pictures of herself but is not as much of a contender FEI-wise as HSB?
Was there any chance for WEG or the Olympics for these ladies? Perhaps HSB?
If these ladies are set down for a few years I think we’ll have plenty of riders, that when given the chance will take up the slack with no problem.
Are these riders really so important that their absence will hurt the U.S. in the long run? I’m thinking that they aren’t.
Obviously I am considering the repercussions that this behavior will have on our international teams and am not as concerned about the individuals who have decided to ignore the USEF and FEI doping rules.
JB is a top contender I would argue. She has been fairly successful, and I would say both her and HSB have a lot to lose. That EC article said the ban could be up to 4 years if needed. I dont see her posting a lot of selfies online, I always admired her because she seemed like a bionic woman who rode a hundred horses a day and showed everywhere, and exercised race horses etc etc and almost like she never rests. It kind of makes sense now though, if she were using something like these meds to keep her from fatigue and to be able to run that type of life and not break down. Interesting that she is also close to the racing industry, where a lot of that type of self medicating is popular. That is all just speculation of course.
(Yes, people’s personal lives are their personal lives. But when you’re a running a business that is in part based on your personal reliability that requires you to be in reasonably good health and focused on the well-being of the horses in your care, you should consider that ‘party girl’ - especially at EDC, which is a haven for drug use - is not the image that potential clients are seeking.)
I can’t speak to any of the riders involved, but you guys are pretty harsh assuming anyone testing positive for the stimulants involved might not be due to legitimate use.
I was diagnosed as an adult, after graduating from law school and being relatively high functioning, about four years ago as ADHD – inattentive type. The young lady that works for me in the barn was diagnosed in 9th grade, and I was doing research to help her develop some good systems to make doing barn chores easier and hopefully to minimize screw ups, and I thought “geez, that sounds like me!”
So, my PC sent me to a doc who did about 6 hours of testing and meeting with me, pulled my elementary report cards (those that we could find) and had my mother do a multi-page questionnaire, and ended up saying that he thought it was astonishing that I’d gotten through law school and had done as well as I had as bad as my ADHD was.
Medication has been life-changing for me. I wish it had also been performance enhancing! :lol: I don’t have any appetite suppressant side effects, mores the pity. And I don’t have lots of energy either. It is as if I come up to an almost normal level of functioning in terms of attention to detail and being able to plow through boring material. My anxiety has also dropped considerably, because I am no longer running through things in my head, over and over again, because I’m terrified that I will forget something. I don’t notice any effect with mine like you “hear” speed described – I mostly notice if I fail to take it, in that I’m a lot less focused in my daily tasks, and a lot more “oh, look!! a kitty!!!”
I spend a good bit of time volunteering in eventing, though not as much as I used to, and I’ve always heard that riders could be tested, but I’ve never heard reports of it happening. In the very unlikely event that I would ever compete at an FEI level competition (unless they begin to offer BN! :lol: ), I know to make sure that the horse is free from all substances, but I’m not sure I would have thought about myself, and the medications I’ve taken routinely for so long. But, maybe I would have.
And maybe the usage here wasn’t legitimate, but I hate to see an assumption made that it isn’t. I am miserable going even one day without my ADHD meds, and I would HATE to compete without them. I am looking forward to having less stress at a show and being able to stay on track, but now I will be extra careful if I ever am involved with the FEI. (Which, frankly, I cannot imagine! Pigs will probably fly first!)
I don’t think we will miss any of them for the next two cycles. JB doesn’t have anything of truly international quality and neither one has delivered many results outside of CICs and Advanced Horse Trials. Harbor Pilot/Cambalda seem to be good 3* horses and nothing more. And maybe the Mars money will go somewhere else over this… Not sure of the Gardners’ loyalty.
I don’t think anyone here is assuming anything. Speculating maybe, based on facts, which is all part of following your favourite elite sport. Since no one wants to come out and say what happened, we are left to make our own conclusions.
ETA - a lot of what you describe before meds is how I feel all the time. I thought inability to focus on boring tasks, being tired, and distracted easily, and stressed over deadlines was part of life?
Since you had success before, and seem to find everything easier now, would that not technically mean it IS performance enhancing? No wonder so many people are on these prescriptions now. They seem to make everyone be able to focus to the %100 of their mental ability, whether natural or not.
Even if the use of these substances was for legitimate medical reasons and they all had prescriptions, they should have known better and submitted the paperwork.
I don’t know how much research you’ve done on ADHD, and since even experts in the field can disagree on it, this is probably not the place to debate the issue, especially with someone who seems to not believe it is a condition that effects the pre-frontal cortex of the brain and is, instead, just a “part of life,” but no, I don’t think it is “unfairly” performance enhancing.
Maybe that is the difference? I don’t think it is unfairly performance enhancing any more than my contact lenses are. Without them, I am truly blind as a bat. The eye doctor says my vision isn’t even rateable on the 20/whatever scale. Mine is at the “How many fingers am I holding up” stage. And yet, no one says that I shouldn’t be able to ride or show my horse because I need vision correction to do so. Or drive a car, which my license actually states I have to have the vision correction in order to do.
My meds do no more than bring me up to the level of dealing with things that are “just part of life.” I still find boring tasks hard to push through, and I’m still distracted at times. The difference is that I CAN deal with it and force myself through, whereas before, I relied on massive dumps of adrenaline to stimulate my brain.
Anyway, I think folks here, and in the comments I’ve seen have assumed that the drugs were used as part of a party scene, and that if prescribed to the individuals, it couldn’t possibly be for a good reason.
I’m just speaking up as a person that takes these meds to say that they don’t give a huge unfair advantage – at least to me they don’t. I might not be quite as disorganized as I would be without them, but my medication doesn’t make me superhuman and so much better than everyone else.
“Even if the use of these substances was for legitimate medical reasons and they all had prescriptions, they should have known better and submitted the paperwork.” (quoted from Snicklefritz above)
I can’t really disagree with that. Especially if riders were aware that riders would be tested. As I’ve said above, I’ve worked as staff at a good many FEI level comps, and have seen lots of horses tested, but haven’t ever been aware that riders were regularly being tested too. And if they knew that, then yes, getting the TEU ahead of time would have been the right thing to do.
And that is why I spoke up at all! It is something I didn’t understand until I started doing a lot of research to help someone else and kept seeing myself. I spent a lot of years being told I didn’t “live up to my potential” and skating by on doing everything at the last minute, and being really good at standardized tests. My favorite teacher from high school says that knowing what they know now, it is clear to her that I had a bad case of it in high school, but that in the 80’s they thought it was something for hyperactive boys, and that I was just flighty and lazy.
It would not surprise me to find out that a higher percentage of professional riders, especially eventers, have ADHD than the general public. Two of the things that will stimulate that lazy or dormant part of the brain in someone with ADHD are movement, and adrenaline. I absolutely, positively, could NOT start on a project, paper or exam prep without it being last minute in panic mode. Some people just choose to do it that way, but I couldn’t do it any other way because that created an adrenaline rush. I’ve also always relied on LOTS of caffeine. LOTS. And it doesn’t keep me up or cause jitters in me.
And riders are very active, so they get a lot of movement, and dealing with horses also produces lots of adrenaline, especially riding cross country or even just dealing with fit event horses. So, there are likely some riders who wouldn’t know they had ADHD, but just knew that working outside, with athletic horses, is what made them feel alive. And they might, as adults, get diagnosed with ADHD when something triggered them to ask about it. Which is what happened to me.
As an additional aside, the trainer that taught me for years found a big difference in my ability to process once I started on the medication. Again, nothing superhuman, but a lot less “OMG, LOOK! A SQUIRREL!” :lol: :lol:
Even when Ritalin/Adderall/stimulants of that type are prescribed for objectively medical conditions (chemotherapy induced brain issues were my example) - they have performance enhancing effects physically. Even very small doses.
That’s why these drugs are on the prohibited list of the WADA. Simple as that.
ADHD is a condition that is diagnosed SUBJECTIVELY, based on a collection of symptoms. Yes… There’s lots of testing involved. But people can… and certainly do… exaggerate or flat out falsely report symptoms in order to obtain prescriptions for these drugs. Almost everyone who has weighed in on this thread readily acknowledges that this condition is over diagnosed, and that the medication used to treat it is frequently misused and abused by both people who have prescriptions, and people who don’t. One person who has been prescribed Ritalin weighed in early on saying that on the occasion they take double their dose in a single day, they are an absolute “machine.” Others who have prescriptions have weighed in saying that they would be a mess without these meds.
I think it’s an INCREDIBLY slippery slope to be granting TUEs for Ritalin/Adderall to people competing at the international levels of ANY sport on the basis of an ADHD diagnosis. What’s to stop someone with a TUE from taking a double dose of the PED on the day of competition and having a competitive edge?
I have no clue what these people do in their personal lives, nor who is or isn’t a contender to represent our country… But I think putting people who are taking these meds… even with a prescription and TUE… on ANY sports team representing our country can DEFINITELY open up the possibility of questioning the legitimacy of any achievements/medals that team wins.
If people were partying and using prescription meds that are controlled substances illegally… Obviously they can and should face penalties if caught. But pointing to ADHD and a prescription and saying, “Problem solved. Nothing to see there, and everything is on the up and up, no competitive advantage” - well, I think that’s the wrong call.
I’m very sympathetic to your statements - I have asthma, and am on several medications to control it, including Advair, which has a bad rap as a PED.
[For the record, I am very careful to ensure that everything I take is allowed under the doping regs, checking each medication that is prescribed before I fill the prescription. There are medications that I have had to decline (most notably the asthma drug Breo) because they are prohibited.]
The point is, if you are subject to rules on what you can and cannot take, as I am, and as these women were, then it is your responsibility to comply. No matter how sympathetic the circumstances, your use was not legitimate if the drug is banned, you knowingly took it, and you did not request and receive a TUE.
Having a diagnosed medical condition and a prescription does not by itself make a medication “legitimate” for sport, no matter how much all the people going to anti-aging or performance enhancement medical clinics want to believe it does.
I’m really not sympathetic to these women - they were aware they were subject to these rules. And if little old me, who is at a lower level in my own sport, can diligently check Global DRO, so can they, as athletes competing at the FEI level.
If you competed at the FEI level, I’m sure you’d be aware of the doping regs applicable to you
:lol: I don’t have any appetite suppressant side effects, mores the pity. And I don’t have lots of energy either. It is as if I come up to an almost normal level of functioning in terms of attention to detail and being able to plow through boring material. My anxiety has also dropped considerably, because I am no longer running through things in my head, over and over again, because I’m terrified that I will forget something. I don’t notice any effect with mine like you “hear” speed described – I mostly notice if I fail to take it, in that I’m a lot less focused in my daily tasks, and a lot more “oh, look!! a kitty!!!”
