I don’t think that would work anyway. I believe they take the whole chain of custody thing with the samples pretty seriously.
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MHM exactly.
So there’s no chance this would become part of a PPE, for example?
As I think I mentioned much earlier in the thread, I would certainly be inclined to include it in a PPE so that if the horse tested positive for something a week later, I could verify that it was already in the horse’s system the day I got him.
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The COTH article mentioned earlier said they will only test samples from governing bodies, so not on PPEs.
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I wonder if one could pull a hair sample at the PPE and have the vet “hold” it so if the horse were tested and came up positive, the sample at the PPE could be tested.
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Interesting thought, but my guess is that a lawyer could challenge the chain of custody.
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@Ghazzu, I thought about that, which is why I thought the sample should remain w the vet.
@jvanrens, I saw that, too. I wondered if an exception would/could be made in this circumstance. Just grasping at straws…
This has been a topic of conversation among my barn friends. Here’s the scenario we all wonder about:
Buyer pays a premium for a top hunter with a stellar show record. But at the next show, the hair test reveals that within a time frame prior to purchase the horse had been administered pentobarbital. How much of that stellar show record was “enhanced” by the euthanasia drug? Could it be argued that the horse is actually worth less since it seems it won ribbons while drugged with an illegal substance? Would this be considered fraud or misrepresentation?
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If it takes a whopping big lawsuit and tons of bad publicity to drum these dirt bags out of the horse industry, then I hope it happens sooner rather than later.
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re doing the testing during a ppe, I’m not seeing anything in any of what has been posted that a lab wouldn’t do it as part of a blood panel or other testing pulled by a vet and submitted like any other bloodwork, etc. I get why they don’t necessarily want everybody and their mother submitting their horse’s hair but if a vet can submit a blood panel for health and or drug screening why can’t they send in some hair too?
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Whether it would be fraud/misrepresentation would probably turn, at least in part, on whether the seller had represented that the horse had never been given those drugs/what the seller said when the buyer asked that question. Perhaps it makes sense for a buyer to ask that the bill of sale include a representation from the seller that to the seller’s knowledge no prohibited substances had been given to the horse in a particular timeframe. I don’t know if sellers will agree but any seller that refuses to make that representation would give me some pause.
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There’s enough wrangling over whether a split sample in the possession of the regulatory folks was adequately secured/handled.
Plus, you’d need signed affidavits from witnesses to the collection of the sample, tamper-proof receptacles and storage and so forth.
And the possibility of a lawsuit from the seller should the sample ever be tested and produce a positive.
The DVM doing a PPE is an agent of the buyer, and wouldn’t necessarily be considered an impartial party by the court, I suspect.
I can’t imagine a DVM wanting to add yet another headache to a PPE.
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Where would they send it?
The lab that is capable of analyzing the hair won’t accept samples from individuals, just organizations.
And I doubt there would be enough of a market to make it worth adding to an existing lab or establishing such a business. I wouldn’t expect much volume of samples being submitted.
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Sounds like a good idea to me.
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