This will effectively kill horse racing

[Riot]

I agree we need uniform punishments for violations across all jurisdictions. That is what is needed, not a zero tolerance rule that will harm the health and well-being horses we race.

We have allowed therapeutic medications, and we have the means to test levels of those drugs to a degree more infitismally smaller than we practically need.

Let me put it this way: bank tellers, who handle alot of money, not infrequently test trace positives for cocaine due to secondary exposure to the trace amounts on money. Trainers have had cocaine positives from drug-using stable help touching their horses and transferring cocaine.

We know which levels of these drugs are therapeutic (a dose that works) and thus we know the level of those drugs that could be "performance enhancing or altering"; and so we know the ineffective doses, or the levels that are too low to work, thus cannot be performance enhancing or altering.

We have to have a zero tolerance for overages that could be performance enhancing, but we have to not punish ridiculously for trace amounts of non-performance-enhancing levels of drugs given at an approved therapeutic level within a proper doctor-patient-client relationship.

Example: I give a slightly colicky horse a pain injection Monday afternoon. I report the administration and dose to the stewards (file the vet report). The horse is fine. A little gas bubble for an hour or so, pain never comes back. It runs Friday. They find a teeny tiny microdose trace of the painkilling drug.

This should be of no concern because a report was filed before the horse raced.

If the amount of drug found is higher, closer to therapeutic levels (showing administration closer than Monday) of course there should be a punishment.

But zero tolerance is silly here, and harms the horse.