Michael Whitaker may be banned from riding in Olympics

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H&H article, published today, just here:

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/competitionnews/390/290102.html

Oh dear...
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Very tragic but doping needs to be eliminated from all sports and the only way to eliminate it is to make examples of those caught. Many dream of competing at the Olympics and manywill do anything it takes to get there, so by banning those caught from getting to the games it sends a strong message.

We need to get the sport clean again.
 
As I have said on other threads and in other publications and about other riders, this whole term 'doping' should be dropped from many cases and especially this one. The horse tested for a TRACE of a substance that IS PROVEN not to be performance enhancing in any way when used on stallions and only makes mares more tractable during seasons, it certainly cannot make them jump high or run faster.
sadly these days the testing process is so refined they can get positives from merely being stroked by someone with a cream on their hands from treating themselves so as far as I am concerned they should have threshold levels for all these actually harmless substances. Horses testing for a medication like bute, acp or whatever are a completely different kettle of fish.
It is not like a few years ago when threshold levels were dropped because testing was not so refined and took ages so it was easier to practise zero tolerance, but testing positive has got so easy to do, i believe many horses will not be getting the bast after care soon because you darent do a thing to them. Obviously it is much better to let a small wound blow rather than apply sudocream to it , which although safe enough to be used on tiny babies and clearly therefore would need huge amounts to affect THE PERFORMANCE of a horse, will give you a positive test because it contains a tiny amount of a steroid. Using sudocream is hardly 'doping' is it?
 
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What a wonderfull post!

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gosh thanks, i was only aiming for a bit of mild agreement!
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LMAO!
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Have been thinking the same lines for a while,so cant but agree with you...it can be mild if you wish
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Sudocrem is an exalent example of the stupidity of the rules though-if all it took to make a horse jump higher/get around the XC faster was a teeny tiny trace of a steriod pretty much any horse could go to the olympics
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When looking for foul play,I think the FEI need to look at where the trace comes from as well as what it is and,of course, only bann those who have horses with a level that could affect it's performance.

It is crazt that drugs avalable to every RS horse or happy hacker are denied when it come to top class comp horses who are under a lot more physical(sp? ARRRR) pressure then a leisure horse
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regumate is widely used to calm stallions, it simply isn't one of the uses listed on the label, just google regumate for stallions!
Its not about a substance making them jump higher or go faster, its about anything that alters the horses natural way of going, eg mild pain relief, or calming paste.
Therefore each horse is competing on an equal basis
the only way to get that is zero tolerance...
 
Duh, this is the second time i have had to post this today! People may believe it calms stallions but is ABSOLUTELY PROVEN YEARS AGO that nothing of the sort happens. There have been several studies on the subject so while you are googling try instead searching for altrenogest aand stallions and it wil write you the list.
Any anecdotal evidence from you or anyone else is probabaly more due to the handler being more confident when they think the horse will be better behaved.
And no stud farm I have ever been on has ever used it for that purpose in case it affected semen quality (alos proven to not happen).
 
Duh..
It wasn't used on a stud farm, it was used on a competing stallion, plus there are many things that were ABSOLUTELY PROVEN YEARS AGO not to do what everyone said they did (cigarettes giving you cancer being one of them) but then turned out to be wrong!
There is no need to be quite so overbearing and rude to anyone that doesn't immediately agree with you, frankly i find your attitude really quite irritating, I and my family have been involved with Competition Horses for many many years and our opinion is pretty well respected so i don't appreciate your high handed dismissal of anything you don't agree with.
 
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As I have said on other threads and in other publications and about other riders, this whole term 'doping' should be dropped from many cases and especially this one. The horse tested for a TRACE of a substance that IS PROVEN not to be performance enhancing in any way when used on stallions and only makes mares more tractable during seasons, it certainly cannot make them jump high or run faster.
sadly these days the testing process is so refined they can get positives from merely being stroked by someone with a cream on their hands from treating themselves so as far as I am concerned they should have threshold levels for all these actually harmless substances. Horses testing for a medication like bute, acp or whatever are a completely different kettle of fish.
It is not like a few years ago when threshold levels were dropped because testing was not so refined and took ages so it was easier to practise zero tolerance, but testing positive has got so easy to do, i believe many horses will not be getting the bast after care soon because you darent do a thing to them. Obviously it is much better to let a small wound blow rather than apply sudocream to it , which although safe enough to be used on tiny babies and clearly therefore would need huge amounts to affect THE PERFORMANCE of a horse, will give you a positive test because it contains a tiny amount of a steroid. Using sudocream is hardly 'doping' is it?

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Totally agree with you, you obviously know what you are talking about, I wish poor Michael had not been banned from the olympics, I think he has been treated too harshly. In the article it says that they never thought he had done anything intentionally, so why such a strong penalty?
 
if you dont like me put me on UI. and i am fed up of repeating myself. I dont care what your anecdotal exprience is with competing stallions or any other sort, I have plenty of that as well and not had the need to attempt to calm them down feeding regumate. As it happens the stallion in question did not look that difficult to me last week in barcelona but hey ho.
and in case you havent noticed science has moved on a bit since it was not believed that smoking and cancer were related ( about 40 years worth I should think) and if you took you own advice and googled, you would discover that at least one of those studies involved competition horses.
I am well fed up of people going on about 'doping' when on this occasion perhaps MW thought it might have some effect on his horse but it is much more likely that it was a mistake, and even if it wasnt, it could not possibly be performance enhancing. And even if it were, not at the levels discovered. I wpould expect someone who uses regumate and is familiar with it would know that a one off dose a couple of hours proior to jumping would make no difference TO A MARE and certainly not to a stallion, it has to be fed regularly for a set period. consequently the levels should be higher.
 
"As it happens the stallion in question did not look that difficult to me last week in barcelona but hey ho."
I'm amazed that you have time to post at all what all the events you get to... most of us are too busy actually riding and not watching to be able to post as much as you! Hey ho!
 
If indeed regumate is a pointless thing to give a stallion in terms of performance enhancing/temperament improving then I can't see the point of banning MW. Can we not ban geldings for not having enough testosterone and therefore making them less prone to natural behaviour? Stallions have a naturally occuring performance enhancement, don't they? I think in this case, it's very silly indeed.

Artypants, get off your high horse, please.
 
I don't know enough about the science used behind detecting prohibited substances in horses (or athletes for that matter), but can imagine that the testing is more rigorous now that in was in previous years - for obvious reasons.

There have been cases where athletes have had their bans overturned where it has been successfully proven that a banned substance found its way in to their system through totally innocent means. ie by a certain food stuff or over the counter medicine being found to contain the ingredient.

If the case surrounding MW's ban, however, centres around a stallion being found to have traces (no matter how small) of regumate in his system - then this is clearly counter to the rules of prohibited substances. I am not aware of regumate being contained in any substances other than 'Regumate'. So whether fed intentionally or unintentionally - he has a banned substance in his sytem.

The consequence is a ban. End of.
 
While I strongly sympathise with what seems to be an unfortunate error in feeding ( and goodness knows, its something everyone has inadvertantly done if working with horses for any length of time), I looked up 'altrenogest' as suggested(but on Google Scholar and PubMed, to be sure of the quality of information!). The first page sbrought up articles that stated 'However, there are currently no known estimates of the extent to which this exogenous hormone is being utilized in stallions', and 'Treatment of young stallions with altrenogest for 8 wk has marked effects on sexual
and aggressive behaviors and sperm production'. I agree this is a tiny couple of quotes, and easily taken out of consequence, but it took two minutes to find this info-so there is a small argument for it as a calmer.
 
Raffa, you have misread your second quote which is "has NO marked effects on sperm production etc" and your first one is from an introduction i think discussing why there was a need for the studies, so is indeed taken out of context.
the calmer argument was one of the reasons the studies were done in the first place and it was found to have no noticeable effect.
and Sallysmart, the point is that these tests are there to make sure the sport is clean not to victimise people who even if they applied the substance on purpose, would have no advantage doing so.
and it is worth someone finding out possibly whether Altrenogest has just remained on the prohibited list from a long time ago when it was also banned for mares and has just remained there or if it has been added since any of the science was done.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4035/is_200112/ai_n9011986/
or here
http://www.ivis.org/proceedings/aaep/1997/Miller.pdf
or here
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0093691X97840782

 
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Sallysmart, the point is that these tests are there to make sure the sport is clean not to victimise people who even if they applied the substance on purpose, would have no advantage doing so.

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I can't see any victimisation going on - only the banning of a rider whose horse ingested a prohibited substance.
 
Excellent post - i have been trying to work out why i feel the whole thing makes me feel uncomfy and you have summed it up perfectly! it is a shame the FEI and British Olympic Association can't see things that clearly.
 
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As I have said on other threads and in other publications and about other riders, this whole term 'doping' should be dropped from many cases and especially this one. The horse tested for a TRACE of a substance that IS PROVEN not to be performance enhancing in any way when used on stallions and only makes mares more tractable during seasons, it certainly cannot make them jump high or run faster.
sadly these days the testing process is so refined they can get positives from merely being stroked by someone with a cream on their hands from treating themselves so as far as I am concerned they should have threshold levels for all these actually harmless substances. Horses testing for a medication like bute, acp or whatever are a completely different kettle of fish.
It is not like a few years ago when threshold levels were dropped because testing was not so refined and took ages so it was easier to practise zero tolerance, but testing positive has got so easy to do, i believe many horses will not be getting the bast after care soon because you darent do a thing to them. Obviously it is much better to let a small wound blow rather than apply sudocream to it , which although safe enough to be used on tiny babies and clearly therefore would need huge amounts to affect THE PERFORMANCE of a horse, will give you a positive test because it contains a tiny amount of a steroid. Using sudocream is hardly 'doping' is it?

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I completely agree.

Of course rules need to be upheld, but those rules are in place to stop people from using drugs to enhance performance and thereby cheating. I really fail to see the point in punishing someone for something that was not only an innocent mistake, but has absolutely no beneficial affect on the horse in question.

By all means be harsh on people who deliberately break the rules, but surely there has to be some sort of perspective and rational thinking in cases like this, rather than treating every single incident the same, whether a horse has a trace of sudocream on a cut, or has been drugged up to the eyeballs in order to try and cheat.
 
Sorry Lucretia but I have got to ask you why you say a "trace" of the substance was found. Where is this information taken from?
Whilst I do not believe most things that are published H & H state "laced"
I really am interested to understand why you state a trace.
 
I don't feel I have misread something- I agree that it has no effect on sperm production, but I was more interested in the effect on behaviour. I'm happy to be proved wrong, but the paper further states 'A lack of libido and breeding ability in the treated stallions was seen at wk 16 as 3 of the 5 treated stallions failed to ejaculate versus 1 of the 5 control stallions, with 'Altrenogest had marked effects on sexual and aggressive behaviors and sperm production of young stallions. Several of these parameters did not return to pre-trial values by 8 wk after treatment.' But there's always another article that will say exactly the opposite-nothing is ever set in stone if you are keen on science.
 
thanks spiral, and teebee , which study are you reading raffa because the substance can have a mild effect on young stallions but seems to disappear by the age of three at the latest, that is why several of the studies are on specific age groups.
and I am afraid Freshman that i canot reveal my sources but suffice to say if a significant amount of anything had been found I should imagine the outcome would have been different, nor would the explaination of a contaminated bowl have been accepted.
As i have tried to explain several times to just giving the horse (whatever sort it is) just one dose will have no effect at all. ALL the studies support that, as does the anecdotal evidence from many years of use on mares.
If anyone is that interested the use of this substance on pigs makes fascinating reading and also supports the no effect on grown stallions line.
 
i have to say that i agree with lucretia...i think that the various governing bodies for ALL sports need to take a look at the rules- there is accidental contamination and deliberate doping. it would appear that in MW's case its accidental- even the governing bodies have come out openly and said that they have accepted this... so yes he should be punished but a lifetime Olympic ban seems totally over the top to me....
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A horse (or an athlete) is either clean or not, end of.

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that is a simplistic view and implies a lack of understanding of the care of top class competion horses. humans after exertion or if they have a weakness or whatever can choose about their treatment and care and ask the attending doctor which they may safely use.
At present we are almost in the position where it is getting impossible to give our top level competition horses the care they need because the rules are made by WADA to apply to humans with an side rule that says in the case of horses the FEI rules will also be applied.
The whole Olympic debacle was exactly the same. the result of the random test would indicate a third of the competing horses would have given a positive sample if they had tested the lot, for a common easily tranferable and absorbed substance, found in many many products and to do what was being claimed by proscecution, needed to be applied immediately prior to jumping so all these horses must have had their legs treated in the collecting ring in front of the stewards etc at an Olympic Games. That sounds does not sound credible to me.
Doubtless there is some wrong doing going on it would be naive to think otherwise but when was the last time a showjumper tested positve for something uncommon or definately a drug (by that i mean bute or acp for example) in suffficient quanties to enhance performance?
IMO everybodies interests would be better served by tightening up the proceedure at vet inspections, sometimes rather slack, and by making good use of technology like theremal imagers and banning the use of things like weighted pinch boots, the last of which must be morally suspect at the very least, because the have to be aplied tightly and slightly (at least) uncomfortably for them to do the job.
 
My Boss and I were chatting about this very subject the other day. We both have an interest, as we are research physiologists with a healthy curiosity in exercise physiology.

We actually got on to the topic because I was talking about the fact that there seem to be so many gaffs being made by the governing bodies of sport at the highest levels these days - take for example at the recent athletics world championships where that poor South African girl was outed to the entire world as perhaps not being 'female' - in my opinion, all of that investigation should have been carried out behind closed doors and certainly not in the eyes of the world's press - she was certainly no Russian/German shot putter from back in the good old days where transgenderism and drug use was commonly abused.

This lead on to the problems that FEI have been having recently in terms of consistency - again, in my opinon, if you make a decision on how many teams to keep in the Super League one week, you shouldn't be changing your mind on the world stage a couple of weeks later - it does not look professional and remember that sponsors, the people who keep these sports going, are looking on and if they don't think the way the sport is run is professional, then no matter what you are doing to make things more interesting for spectators, the people providing the money will move on.

And so to point - I completely agree with Lucretia - there has to be a modicum of common sense used when looking at drugs tests and hence ruling who is cheating or abusing the system or their animals. But the problem is, this is very difficult to do objectively and without professional abuse creeping in, and so a zero tolerance rule is undertaken, in essence to make life easier.

In society, we don't often use this method, as it leads to unfairness; instead we take into consideration the circumstances of the crime - that's why we have judges in courts of law, to rule upon the type and circumstances of a misdemeanour and decide upon the type and severity of punishment meted out.

Of course sport does have the International Court of Arbitration for Sport, but I'm guessing bodies like the FEI on the whole like to keep things in house to keep costs down and so again the zero tolerance ruling wins as it is cheap and easy.

I really think that in an ideal world, each case should be looked at by an in house judgement team, preferably with a couple of scientific advisors on the panel who can explain drug effects in simple terms. They should have the power to assess each case and not have to abide by a zero tolerance rule. Forgive me as I am not entirely sure how the FEI runs its disciplinary committee, but as they have zero tolerance, I'm guessing it's not by the method I describe, unless an appeal is made?

In MW's case, it really would seem that the whole thing was an accident, with no benefit to be gained (just looking at the 1997 paper on altrenogest and stallions on google scholar does say that it takes a 30 day dose - not just one dose - to have a 'minor' effect on stallion behaviour, so it was highly unlikely to be used by a professional to calm his horse down just before a round).

It just seems completely crazy that we have reached a stage where drug use is completely frowned upon without any sense of context. Drugs are good, they help people and horses stave off injury, recover quicker and live longer - it is completely a question of context as to when they are being used for the wrong purpose, and we should have some sort of allowance in all sports to account for this. It's just a shame, to reiterate, that the 'safest' option in terms of comeback and the cheapest for most governing bodies is the zero tolerance route. Doesn't mean it is right or fair though.

Sorry for the essay - I reckon you can guess that I'm working abroad at present, am bored and looking for something to do!
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dont apologise, good post as it happens, especially as now i know which study to which you and the other poster was looking at, and there have been several since which refute this in older horses.
we always like good informed opinion on here, even the long posts!
 
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