[Phalaris1913]

So basically, what you're saying is that a guy who's had two seperate horses (that won or placed in races) with significant levels of local anesthetic in their systems during the immediate post-race period looks rosier than a guy who had an unused vial of illegal medication sitting in a refridgerator.

A 1.6 nanogram mepivacaine positive - when most states have threshold levels much higher than that - is a "significant level?"

I understand the desire to catch cheaters. I do not understand the mindset that wants to see trainers get "gotcha'd" for using legal medication that jurisdictions tell them they can use, at days out from races that jurisdictions tell them they can use it.

This mindset does more damage, re: drug use, to racing than anything else. Most - so they say, virtually all - positives involve nothing but trivial overages of routine, legal medication. The outside world, which hears only that TRAINER X HAS DRUG POSITIVE (not that trainer x used a legal medication several days, or even weeks, ago, often following the official withdrawal recommendations), can only assume that said positive means that trainer x intentionally gave an performance-affecting medication right before the race for nefarious reasons or else they wouldn't be publicising and punishing him for it. Racing needs to figure out how to handle legal medications in a way that doesn't allow abuse but also doesn't criminalize trainers for using them. How it's handled now is not accomplishing that.