Legend, adequan, and pentosan are all vet prescribed but you give a dosage of adequan and pentosan weekly or every 4 days so we just do it ourselves. Also, you can just call up your vet and ask for it, then pick it up in office. It’s not tightly controlled, because there’s nothing you can make out of it, you can’t get high on it, and you can’t overdose on it.
I have a jar of bute on hand, about a months supply, and my vet would be pissed at me if I ran out and didn’t get more. Bute has saved my vet many a time from having to do a farm call at midnight, and trust me, she doesn’t want to drive to my house in the middle of the night.
Most farms or barns with more than a few horses will have banamine on hand. I could ask for it if I wanted a supply, but it goes bad quickly and I’ve been able to do fine with just bute.
The requirement for sharps containers (in the rules, not necessarily in the prize list ) goes back to at least 2006, maybe further.
The requirement for sharps containers has little to do with drugs, legal or otherwise, but is based on the danger to people (especially cleaning staff) getting stuck with a needle.
In the US there are many drugs that need to be prescribed by a vet, but can be/are administered by the owner or barn staff. The most common (in MY experience) is penicillin procaine G. Since it usually needs to be administered twice a day for about a week, it does not make sense to have the vet out twice a day. Much simpler for the owner or caretaker to do it. In the US lots of barn staff, and people who keep their horses at home, are comfortable giving IM injections, though fewer are comfortable with IV injections.
(Yes, I know that the horse can’t COMPETE while on penicillin procaine G - because the procaine is banned - but if you are at multiweek show (with all the barn staff at the show), you might keep the horse on the showgrounds while being treated.)
And there are lots of other IM injections that are prescribed by a vet, but routinely administered by the owner or barn staff, many of which are perfectly legal to show on, such as NSAIDs, methocarbamol, dexamethasone (below certain concentrations_, certain anesthetics and tranquilizers in conjunction with treating an injury . Also IM joint medications such as adequan. See https://www.usef.org/forms-pubs/2Zp2C_YKs4s/2022-equine-drugs-medications
As far as I can tell, the lead line classes are NOT exempt from Drugs and Medications rule.
Most shows classify the leadline as an exhibition, which makes it exempt.
No it doesn’t.
They are exempt from PAYING the D&M fee, but they are NOT exempt from the D&M RULES.
See GR407.1
The relevant parts are
GR407 Management Procedures
- To provide funds for research, inspection and enforcement of rules regarding use of medications and drugs, each Licensed Competition, except where prohibited by law, must assess the exhibitors a fee for each horse and/or pony entered in the competition. Participants in the following classes are exempted from payment:
a. leadline
b. exhibitions
…
h. However, these classes are not exempt from the Drugs and Medications Chapter itself.
Except it does, despite that clause. None of the USEF rules apply to an exhibition. The horses aren’t registered or microchipped, the riders aren’t members and pay no fees, sometimes the judge doesn’t have a license and it’s not uncommon for it to be a completely different horse than is on the entry. For hunt night they don’t usually enforce the approved helmet rule, just as they wouldn’t enforce it if someone was standing on the back of a trick horse and doing an actual exhibition. There’s no way to apply the medication rule to these kinds of classes, half the people are in violation because they have no idea what drug rules are, and a good part of the other half are stuck or buted up on purpose, and there would be absolutely no way to enforce any violations.
What is actually ENFORCED may be very different from what the rules SAY, but the rules clearly say that leadline and exhibition are subject to the D&M rules.
(There are OTHER rules that say leadline is exempt from some membership requirements and dress /saddlery rules. But nothing that says leadline is exempt from D&M rules)
all horses present on a show grounds or venue are under protection of the cruelty rules and handlers are liable for knowing rules
