USEF Drug Testing: When is it too much?

[MHM]

[QUOTE=SidesaddleRider;7532395]
My side saddle horse was tested 4 times last year – out of 12 shows! I don’t really mind getting pulled for testing, as I prefer them to be testing than not, so that we are all on a level field. What I DO mind is making me wait for 30-45 min for him to possibly pee after I untacked and hosed him off, even though I always tell them he will NOT pee in front of people, when I still have to unbraid him, pack up, and then haul home 3-6 hours – THAT is irritating. Just pull blood and be done with it![/QUOTE]

I had a tester wait in a pony’s stall once for about two hours , after I told her she should wait outside, since the pony would not go with her inside the stall. Sure enough, as soon as she gave up and left, he made like Niagara Falls.

I’ve also been been told the testers usually pick the horses at random. One tester told me she tried to pick the horses that looked sweet, since she would have to be around them for a while. That might be the one time it’s good to have the horse that looks hard to handle in the jog. :lol:

[ybiaw]

[QUOTE=comingback;7532524]
How would you account for post entered horses? If people knew there was a number being pulled out of a hat full of pre entries, what’s to stop them from eating the post entry fee so they can administer something illegal? Plus the horse show doesn’t know the show is being tested till the vet shows up that morning. There is no way to really pre plan it.[/QUOTE]

The office would still have record of the post entry, correct? Even if the horse gets tested an hour or so after a class, I still think it could be a better system than “Horse Profiling” at the ring. But I haven’t shown in YEARS, and my horses were never selected to be tested back when I was showing, so I’m slightly clueless.

[Nickelodian]

[QUOTE=comingback;7532524]
How would you account for post entered horses? If people knew there was a number being pulled out of a hat full of pre entries, what’s to stop them from eating the post entry fee so they can administer something illegal? Plus the horse show doesn’t know the show is being tested till the vet shows up that morning. There is no way to really pre plan it.

While many shows are computerized, many are not. Remember is not only big A and AA shows that are subject to testing.[/QUOTE]

I’ve not been to a show in 10 years that did not have a computer with the list of entries in it. The morning the tester shows up, print a list of all back numbers issued, cut it up, draw out of a hat. If someone post enters after the lottery, they are subject to mandatory testing.

Just not that hard.

[Nickelodian]

[QUOTE=MHM;7532528]

That might be the one time it’s good to have the horse that looks hard to handle in the jog. :lol:[/QUOTE]

No wonder DC’s never been selected. To him the jog is a perfect time to hump and buck and look at me like his little play thing.

[OnDeck]

As a junior, I had a horse tested 4 or 5 shows in a row (not weeks in a row, but consecutive horse shows we attended). The barn doesn’t drug, nothing ever came back positive. I understand the need to randomly test, and that testers this week don’t know who was tested last week, but I have heard of multiple people with continuous testing streaks out of the blue. My horse was awful with needles, half the time I expected them to give up trying to pull blood because he clearly wasn’t on anything

It wouldn’t have been so annoying if they weren’t all at continuous small shows and if I weren’t a junior. I had to get an adult to sign as a witness, which usually involved taking the barn help away from her job if my parents weren’t around. Said barn help then had to wait for the entire fiasco of getting an IV needle into my horse. It was a process. If my horse needed to be drugged at a one day, I would have bigger problems to worry about than winning a blue ribbon.

Then again… maybe the needle process made the testers think he was one likely to need drugs…

[comingback]

Quite frankly I don’t want my usef drug fee to be paying for someone to cut up little pieces of paper. Nor do I want them to use their time going back and forth with the office to see who post entered.

I guess I just don’t see how picking say 1, 3, and 5 places of the class is less random then drawing from a hat. Not everyone is distracted by the big black horse; )

[joiedevie99]

My experience has been that the testers want to get through their quota as fast as possible. If they need 10 horses that day, they walk over to the show ring and take the first one walking out. As soon as that one finishes and they walk back to the ring and take the first one to exit.

[Nickelodian]

[QUOTE=comingback;7532576]
Quite frankly I don’t want my usef drug fee to be paying for someone to cut up little pieces of paper. Nor do I want them to use their time going back and forth with the office to see who post entered.

I guess I just don’t see how picking say 1, 3, and 5 places of the class is less random then drawing from a hat. Not everyone is distracted by the big black horse; )[/QUOTE]

Well I’m assuming the office staff has a pair of scissors. The problem is that since there is no system, the system can be questioned. Not everyone is distracted by black unbeauty, but lord I was selected almost every weekend when showing.

[ybiaw]

[QUOTE=joiedevie99;7532702]
My experience has been that the testers want to get through their quota as fast as possible. If they need 10 horses that day, they walk over to the show ring and take the first one walking out. As soon as that one finishes and they walk back to the ring and take the first one to exit.[/QUOTE]

And that sucks. As much as comingback doesn’t want their D&M fee to go toward people “cutting up pieces of paper” (which is taking the “lottery” concept way too literally. Shows keep records on a computer anyway and it’s nothing more than setting up a computer to pull random numbers at certain intervals throughout the day), I don’t want my D&M Fees to go toward a tester just wanting to get their quota filled and get out of there so they’ll test ten horses like bam and then leave.

[MHM]

[QUOTE=ybiaw;7532736]
I don’t want my D&M Fees to go toward a tester just wanting to get their quota filled and get out of there so they’ll test ten horses like bam and then leave.[/QUOTE]
How is that system any less random than a different approach?

I can’t imagine it would take much less than an hour for each horse, by the time they select it, accompany it back to the barn or a testing stall, wait for the urine sample, draw blood, and do all the paperwork. It’s not as if they could be in and out of the show by 9:00 AM if they test ten horses.

[comingback]

One other thought, and then I really need to get back to work, is that shows do not run on a clear timetable and thus the lottery option really isn’t as easy as you may think it could be.

Let’s say your a testing tech. There are 2 other testing techs and a vet. You pull your numbers out of hat (if this ever was put into place). It’s a large show and by chance, you pull three horses that are doing the Big Eq. You go over to the horses after they finish the first class, identify yourself and say you would like to pull the horses for testing. You then are informed that the horses are doing all of the big eq classes. You agree that you will wait for said horses to finish, as you are not to interfere with the competition. However, since you have already identified yourself, you must keep the horse under observation till they are done.

The eq classes takes 3 hours to finish. But you cannot go anywhere else since you have already identified yourself. In the interim, you could have gone to another ring, pulled some of the horses showing in the rated divisions, and come back to the eq ring later if you were able to pick the ring and class of your choice.

Let’s say you recognize that the big eq horses are going to be a while, so before approaching them, you move on to one of your other pulled lottery numbers and figure you’ll come back to them later. You pull horses from the rated division running in the other ring. These horses are taking their time with relieving themselves. After an hour, the vet pulls blood and you release them. At this point, the big eq is finished, but the horse number you pulled that morning was a ship in and is gone.

Or…

The horse you pulled from the lottery that morning is done and since the owner/rider/trainer figured they are done for the day, they gave it some bute that, after a period of time, would be within a legal concentration, but since it was just given, will potentially test at an illegal limit.

Or…

You could watch a class and say “this time let’s pull 2nd, 4th, and 6th” and be done with it, yet still keep it random.

[fourfAlter]

[QUOTE=MHM;7532764]
How is that system any less random than a different approach?

I can’t imagine it would take much less than an hour for each horse, by the time they select it, accompany it back to the barn or a testing stall, wait for the urine sample, draw blood, and do all the paperwork. It’s not as if they could be in and out of the show by 9:00 AM if they test ten horses.[/QUOTE]

Hahaha!
The one time my jumper was selected (only once! I could have drugged him for years!) they told me he was selected because he’d won every class that day.
I told them he was fine with needles, so blood was the way to go. They were out of vials, the poor tester sat in his stall for 5 HOURS.
I told her he wouldn’t pee if he could see anyone (yes, any human). She finally gave up, and left and voila! She rushed back into his stall and got 3 drops, literally…
I felt bad! But I did warn her!

[sunshinestate]

Here is what I learned thus far. Drug testers are requested to start drug testing as soon as the show starts and to try and get their random draws early because science shows that most trainers drug first thing in the am and within hours the drugs are out of the system. Gamma amino butytric (gaba) peaks at 1 hour and is almost entirely out of the system within 4 hours after administration based on a 10cc dose. I was told this today by a longtime drug tester. That does make sense as when I asked my friend when his horses traditionally go he did mention usually first thing in the morning. He also stated that almost 98% of the time the drug tags are already filled out with his name, horses name, class number, etc so he really feels it is not so random. Makes for a good discussion.

[JenEM]

[QUOTE=comingback;7532806]

Or…

You could watch a class and say “this time let’s pull 2nd, 4th, and 6th” and be done with it, yet still keep it random.[/QUOTE]

I would think you wouldn’t even want them to watch the class, if you want it to be truly random. They should decide the day before, for instance, we’re going to split up and Tester#1 is going to Ring#1, and take the 3rd and 6th horses out of the ring in Class#3, and Tester #2 is going to Ring #3 and taking the 2nd and 7th horses out of the ring in Class #5. That would completely randomize things, no need to cut up numbers or account of post-entries or anything

[comingback]

[QUOTE=sunshinestate;7532911]
He also stated that almost 98% of the time the drug tags are already filled out with his name, horses name, class number, etc so he really feels it is not so random. Makes for a good discussion.[/QUOTE]

In an attempt to get paper work done, I have completed class name, horse name, etc ahead of time. If you are just picking a horse at random is not that hard to get that info from what is announced at the ring and is not necessarily an indicator of something nefarious.

[MHM]

@fourfAlter;7532904

I told them he was fine with needles, so blood was the way to go. They were out of vials, the poor tester sat in his stall for 5 HOURS.

No offense, but what kind of tester runs out of vials? And still tries to test a horse without them? :rolleyes:

On the subject of advance warning, I remember a vet telling me that when vets are sent to test at a show, not only do they not notify anyone at the horse show, they are told to pay any admission costs out of pocket and get reimbursed for it afterwards.

[fourfAlter]

@MHM;7533016

No offense, but what kind of tester runs out of vials? And still tries to test a horse without them? :rolleyes:

Her story was that a naughty pony had acted up and vials were broken (I thought they were plastic…) and she’d already written down the info on my horse, so there you go! I don’t get it, but it was sort of entertaining!!

[bornfreenowexpensive]

I’ve been tested in one year several times as an event rider. I can go for years without being tested and then get tested a few times in row…but from having talked with others…it is clearly just random. They follow you right off the xc course and do not know who you are a head of time. They loved my OTTB as I said let me throw him on the trailer and he will pee for you. Sure enough, fluff the shavings and he knows what to do. They were rarely with us more than 15 minutes. I think if they knew ahead of time how easy he is…I’d get tagged all the time!

[dani0303]

I remember one year where my jumper was tested at almost every show I went to. We did win a lot but didn’t win everything (obviously). He is a very quiet and well behaved boy on the ground so maybe that had to do with it? He’s also a private pee-er and the tester sat for 3 hours until they finally took my advice of taking blood. After that show he always had blood pulled.

[Sing_Mia_Song]

@sunshinestate;7532252

Yes, worried more about making mistakes as this person mentioned the drug testers didn’t wear gloves; dropped vials in the shavings, etc.

I wouldn’t be worried about dropping the vial in the shavings. If they dropped the uncapped needle in the shavings and tried to use it, I would be concerned.