There has been persistent demand from race horse trainers to rationalise the medication rules which on the face of it appear flawed and needs a drastic overhaul. However, the authorities have steadfastly refused to accede to the plea of the professionals and stuck to archaic rules. Medication is often confused with doping of horses and hence the authorities are loathing making any change fearing criticism. The practices elsewhere in democratic set ups have changed with times. Thus it is imperative that Indian authorities change their perception.

The term ‘Zero Tolerance` became the simple buzzword by which most medication rules worldwide were formulated. Unfortunately through the last few decades it has been completely misinterpreted by the Clubs in India.

The British Horseracing Authority has an excellent summation of the actual meaning regarding Medication and Doping.

``It is accepted that medication should be used appropriately in racehorses, and so recognised that medication should be controlled on race days. Medication control is not Zero Tolerance: its intention is that there is no racing under the direct influence of medication.

``Medication control aims to ensure, through science based information, advice and prevention, that the BHA, and so the wider public, can be assured that in a race any drug, or their metabolites, that remains from veterinary treatment given at any time before racing is below a level where it can affect the horse, and so not affect performance.``

In line with this, various authorities have moved toward setting higher screening limits that are much more relevant to the objective of medication rules i.e. horses shouldn`t be affected by drugs on the day of the race.

A Screening Limit refers to the minimum amount of substance that the laboratory`s machines are set to detect. With advances in modern technology we actually quite often ask the laboratory not to set the sensitivity of the machines used to analyse the samples to their maximum level - as they are capable of picking up minuscule amount of a substance, at levels which clearly can`t affect a horse`s performance, says the British Horseracing Authority.

In practice, the screening limit is set around a level that research tells us a substance starts to have an effect. It`s comparable to the law of the country in England allowing a driver up to 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood (or 35 micrograms per 100ml of breath) - so the `breathe test` machines used by the police for roadside tests are set to report a positive result for 35 micrograms and above. Anything below that comes as a negative, although there could well be some alcohol present. A Screening limit includes a consideration of the risk to horseracing`s integrity, as well as the scientific information on levels at which the drug has no effect, states the British Horse Racing Authority.

If the authorities make changes in the way medication rules are implemented at present, it will not affect the integrity of the sport. The refusal of authorities to even consider changes has sparked anger within the industry, particularly from trainers whose reputations have been unfairly tarnished by racing`s version of Russian roulette.

Most clubs in the world including the BTC have a rule that holds a trainer vicariously liable for any medication found in a horse`s system on race day. However, almost all these clubs have clauses that allow for a trainer to be fined or have no action taken against him in lieu of suspension in cases where he has not been unreasonable in his care of the horse. This clause is totally missing from the BTC Calendar Notification or for that matter with that of other turf authorities in India.

All the turf clubs in the world have given detailed explanation as how positive detection of a therapeutic drug is dealt with but in India where security of stables is suspect and sanitary conditions poorer than Europe are not given any concession. The truth of the matter is that trainers at the BTC face the most challenging conditions amongst the major racing centres in the world whilst being held to Draconian standards

The amount and variety of pharmaceuticals in the water supply in India is unprecedented and it is almost impossible to filter. The levels in the ground water will only rise over the years. The Staff are domiciled in close quarters with the horses and are treated with a far quantity of Pharmaceuticals that are freely available and given freely at BTC`s dispensary.

The testing yard is full of dust and roadside particles. If a horse that does not urinate immediately but takes some time leads to dust and other contaminants entering the container and rendering the sample (that is to be tested at levels lower than the smallest dust mote) highly suspect.

Even in the light of the fact that the BTC is asking the Laboratories to test at far too low a level, they themselves continue to act in a highly flawed and suspect manner, when they feel confident in returning positives at 1 Nanogram (1 billionth of a gram) or even picograms (1 trillionth of a gram)
They must in turn be completely infallible.

If you are to show positives at 0.000000001% of a gram then surely your results should be correct by that same margin?. i.e. you should only have one B sample returned back negative for every billion samples sent.

This is not the case if you see the data that is available. You will see that the failure rate is many tens of thousands times worse than that. In fact currently with the failure rate by the labs of 18% over the last five years in Bangalore they would have to test 18 trillion samples correctly to achieve an acceptable standard!

These results adversely affect the livelihood of professionals in the name of zero tolerance and if this is indeed the standard that is demanded it is only reasonable that the labs should then also be struck off in the wake of `B` samples being returned negative. Recently as many seven of the eight positives returned negative when B samples were sent for analysis to another accredited lab. The turf club continues to patronise the same lab.

Further it is incomprehensible that control samples are not being sent with the samples.
When B samples return negative, the inclusion of a control sample would in all likelihood have revealed the flawed testing and saved the connections not only of the reprieved horses but also those unfortunate ones who did not have the means to send their samples and suffered a punishment for a crime that in all likelihood simply did not exist.

The aim of any rule should be to improve the fairness of racing. The present set of rules has been in existence for well for over 20 years and can now surely be judged for its effectiveness.

Has it worked? By any standard the system in place has been a failure.

The number of positives has not declined.

The positives being returned have almost all been the result of contamination beyond the trainer`s control and not the result of some disregard to the rules.

It unfairly targets the most honest trainers as with our Russian roulette testing system as every sample is a lottery ticket to suspension and the most successful trainers are the ones tested the most.

Patancheru in Telangana which receives all the discharge from the numerous pharmaceutical companies located in the area is a classic example of how contamination is a genuine concern. When researchers analyzed vials of treated wastewater taken from a plant where about 90 Indian drug factories dump their residues, they were shocked. Enough of a single, powerful antibiotic was being spewed into one stream each day to treat every person in a city of 90,000.

And it wasn`t just ciprofloxacin being detected. The supposedly cleaned water was a floating medicine cabinet, a soup of 21 different active pharmaceutical ingredients, used in generics for treatment of hypertension, heart disease, chronic liver ailments, depression, gonorrhoea, ulcers and other ailments. Half of the drugs measured at the highest levels of pharmaceuticals ever detected in the environment, researchers say.

These Indian factories produce drugs for much of the world, including many Americans. The result: Some of India`s poor are unwittingly consuming an array of chemicals that may be harmful, and could lead to the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria and dangerous contamination.

“If you take a bath there, then you have all the antibiotics you need for treatment,” said Chemist Klaus Kuemmerer at the University of Freiburg Medical Center in Germany, an expert on drug resistance in the environment. “If you just swallow a few gasps of water, you`re treated for everything. The question is for how long?”

The consequences of the studies are worrisome. The discovery of this contamination raises two key issues for researchers and policy makers: the amount of pollution and its source. Experts say one of the biggest concerns for humans is whether the discharge from the wastewater treatment facility is spawning drug resistance. In the prevailing scenario, how can one be sure that horses don`t suffer the consequence of environmental contamination and hence expose the trainers associated with it to unfair punishment?

“People might say, ‘Oh sure, that`s just a dirty river in India,` but we live on a small planet, everything is connected. The water in a river in India could be the rain coming down in your town in a few weeks,” a researcher said.

The turf clubs should revise medication rules so that it adheres to the principles of natural justice and fair play. At present, the system does nothing to ensure fair racing but in effect unfairly maligns the reputation of trainers that the club needs most to protect instead of damaging them continuously.