Nope, I definitely remember the steroid era (oh the stories I could tell you). This was hair analysis testing for the presence of methylphenidate (a CNS stimulant use to treat ADHD), in a 2021 pubmed article that said “The validated method has been successfully put to use to confirm the presence of methylphenidate in official samples provided by racing authorities.”
But to be fair, that does not mean a) TBs and b) in the US. But a yes to use in racing and not just recently!
Not that I’ve heard of*, but while they are both barbiturates, phenobarbital is not pentobarbital .
'* that doesn’t mean much
It was more a general question since both are barbiturates.
I don’t know of anyone in the US using it currently in horses, but historically it has been used as a sedative and/or an induction agent.
Purely apocryphal but when Tildren was first smuggled into Wellington by helpful European vets there was plenty of trouble with untimely colics and more than one remarkably unusual large bone fracture. Everyone wanted to try it so many a barn manager had to resort to “Over my dead body!” to a naive owner/rider.
USEF isn’t hair testing for controlled medications like Dorm, only for banned substances that should never be in a horse.
Yes as a former big farm yearling manager, this is true. They also test for things like banned steroids etc
This needs to be repeated. They’re not going to use the hair test for common things that can easily be detected in a blood or urine sample.
They don’t care if you gave your horse ace or dorm or sedivet 5-7 days ago (which is how long it takes most substances to show up in hair) or two weeks ago or six weeks ago. But they do care if the hair sample shows that you gave your horse pentobarbital, ever.
For what it’s worth, lest everyone think that there is a widespread problem with pentobarbital, USEF published several findings for drug and med violations for the month of june all of which were legal substances either in excess of the permitted concentration or antihistamines which didn’t have med reports filed. As seems to be typical, the majority were robaxin concentration issues. You can decide what you will about whether that’s a worthwhile use of funds and efforts, but I for one find it immensely frustrating to hear all this news and whispering about legitimately dangerous things happening to horses and the only real concrete news is what appears to be people misjudging ring times or forgetting to file paperwork for allergy meds.
Is it better than The Monday Horses?
It’s for adult readers. The Monday Horses reads like teenage fiction while The Show Gypsies reads like a very realistic depiction of horse show life in the 1970’s.
The ruling for anyone who wants to read it.
Perhaps one of the resident vets can correct me, but from what I read pentobarbitol is only detectable in blood and urine for a very short window after administration. And hair testing by USEF was not to start till July 1. So past drug and med violations for incidents prior to July 1 wouldn’t necessarily pick up any pentobarbitol positives.
It’s been awhile since I looked at anything related to barbiturate anesthesia, but IIRC, barbiturates are pretty rapidly metabolized by the P450 enzyme system in the liver, but also redistributed into tissues.
Which would suggest that some level of metabolite would be present for a reasonable period of time, but might be below detectable levels.
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Pentobarbital is regarded as a short-acting barbiturate (as opposed to ultra-short, medium, and long acting).
Pentobarbital persists in the carcass of euthanized animals for some time, but they’re not actively metabolizing anything.
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Although it is no longer marketed as a surgical anesthetic in the US, it is used for that purpose in other countries, typically in combination with other drugs, which makes it a bit difficult to find much in the way of recent pharmacokinetic data. Most of what comes up in my searching involves phenobarbital, which is used primarily as an anticonvulsant in foals.
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Something else that occurred to me while poking around is that barbiturates can cause a hella nasty sloughing if any of it goes perivascularly.
Right there is something that ought to make people look long and hard at whether it’s worth the risk for a bloody horse show class.
Thank you Ghazzu!
Man I loved all the Jean Slaughter Doty books growing up and checked them out of the library so many times. Now I want to read The Show Gypsies but I looked it up but of course it’s out of print and sadly, used copies are selling for $300-500 
Watch this space (or H/J in general). There is a CotH “pay it forward” copy of Show Gypsies making the rounds. I believe the queue is up to two or three people but it will reappear shortly. We reads it and we sends it on to the next person who asks. To whoever initiated this chain, thank you! It’s good fun.
There are copies of this in libraries, but it is less widely held than the Monday Horses
The show gypsies : a novel | WorldCat.org
Thank you Ghazzu for the explanation on this one. I was scratching my head a little on where the FB add kept saying it was used as a anesthesia drug as our compounding pharmacy sells this mainly as an oral liquid as an anti seizure med for small animal (not as popular as K-Bromide or levetiracetam of course). I have never heard of phenobarb being used as an anesthesia drug and asked on of our pharmacists here as well, which really surprised them as well (we are in Ontario). I know the main side effect from phenobarbital is sedation, so I’m guessing that’s why its being used on horses.
I have no idea how anyone would get phenobarb as it is a controlled substance in Ontario and needs a script. What vet would write a script for a horse that doesn’t show any symptoms of seizures? Is this a controlled substance in the US as well?
One of our pharmacists was surprised that hair needs to be pulled for testing as most dogs/cats that are on phenobarbital get their levels tested through blood and it shows up (so they know how to adjust dosing). But I would assume the pet would have received a dose within the day and then have blood pulled. But if phenobarb has a short testing window and goes through a horses system quite quickly, wouldn’t it easily show up in their blood as well and hair testing wouldn’t be required? I’m assuming (I really don’t know) that it would have a short duration on a horse and would need to be dosed daily? If so, I would have thought it would show in their blood levels then, just like it does in small animals?
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