Louisiana commission goes back to old rules for 2 drugs

Facing widespread pressure to do an about face, the Louisiana
State Racing Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to maintain tighter
restrictions on two controversial medications that would have been under much
looser rules come Saturday.

By a vote of 10-0 with two members absent, the commission decided
in a 17-minute emergency meeting to keep the withdrawal time on the bronchial
drug clenbuterol at 14 days and on the pain-relieving, anti-inflammatory
steroid Depo-Medrol at 21 days. The rule change that was rescinded Tuesday
would have allowed horses to race only three days after being given clenbuterol
and seven days after getting Depo-Medrol.

For those two drugs, commission chairperson Eddie Koehl said
that Tuesday’s vote would maintain the existing rules for at least the next
three months of what has been called an emergency period.

“We’re going to go back and look into research in
conjunction with (the Association of Racing Commissioners International) and
their scientists to make sure we get to the best answer for equine safety,” Koehl
said during the meeting conducted on Zoom.

The announcement last week that Louisiana racing was about
to reduce withdrawal periods for the two drugs led to a wave of criticism from
horsemen pushing for safer standards. Racing administrators around the country
also said they were worried horses being shipped from Louisiana to their tracks
could have an unfair competitive advantage and be more prone to suffer serious
injuries.

With rules still becoming more lenient this weekend for
dozens of other medications, Koehl said the commission is not completely
abandoning the easing of restrictions on clenbuterol and Depo-Medrol.

“We’re not giving up on those,” he said. “During this 90-day
first emergency period, we’ll continue to collect data, and we’re going to coalesce
with ARCI and their membership and their scientists, including their
veterinarians, … to further the therapeutic medications and to promote the
health and safety of our equine and human athletes and participation in
Louisiana.”

Veterinarian Larry Findley, a member of the commission, put
it more succinctly.

“Clenbuterol is an excellent drug, and we all know it’s an
excellent drug,” he said. “But clenbuterol is abused.”

As the owner and operator of Fair Grounds, Louisiana’s
biggest racetrack, Churchill Downs Inc. was the most influential opponent of
the loosened rules that were just rolled back Tuesday.

“This entire emergency rulemaking process that put us in
this position is probably not the right way to go,” CDI attorney Oz Shariff
said. “I think that the best way and the best approach for this commission is
to re-examine this process through normal rulemaking so that there’s adequate
time for public input, comment, review. All the industry stakeholders, a number
of which are on this phone call, I think deserve to weigh in on this very, very
important issue, particularly as Louisiana starts to deviate from well-recognized
and well-understood national standards.”

That was a reference to the overarching path Louisiana has
taken to loosen medication regulations. This goes against the federal grain of
the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, which Louisiana has refused to
join and, in fact, is suing to have declared unconstitutional.

When it voted in its more liberal medication rules, the
commission pointed to veterinarians in Louisiana who believed the federal regulations
were too strident. With dozens of Louisiana state lawmakers also weighing in
against the looser rules, one veterinarian from Opelousas, La., intimated
Tuesday that the commission was caving to pressure from outside racing and
outside the state.

“We’re making decisions, doing what’s politically correct
and not necessarily what’s best for the general population of Louisiana
resources as a whole,” Dr. Travis Miller said.

Koehl recognized that some trainers preparing for races this
weekend might have acted under the looser rules but, with the reversion to the
old standards for clenbuterol and Depo-Medrol, might be flagged in post-race
testing.

“There’s a period for certain horses for these two
medications that we might end up with something outside the old thresholds, and
we will consider that accordingly,” Koehl said. “We’re not going to allow gross
violations on those two, … but we will be well aware of what could have
happened over the last five days.”

Churchill voiced wider objections to the way Louisiana would
handle testing going forward. The commission plans to throw out traditional standards
based on milligrams of a medication per kilograms of a horse. Instead, total
dosages per animal would be the guideline.

“A 1,200-pound horse has a significantly different volume of
distribution than a 900-pound 2-year-old who is making its first start,” CDI equine
medical director Dr. Will Farmer said. “Yet both of these horses have the same
threshold and receive the same amount of medication in a single dose, which
could ultimately set Louisiana horsemen up for a negative analytical finding.”

Farmer also questioned the commission’s decision to allow
certain drugs “until breaking from the gate,” but he was told by Koehl that since
those rules did not apply to clenbuterol and Depo-Medrol, that discussion would
have to wait for another day.