Kellyn Gorder - buh bye for 14 months

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

What is scary is that I have trained about the same amount of years and have a pretty similar record in terms of lack of medication violations and this could happen to me just as easily.

But it didn't happen to you.

The guy could've run a tighter ship.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

But it didn't happen to you.

The guy could've run a tighter ship.

Bullshit. You cant control everything. You cant know what your help is doing on a day to day basis when they arent at work. You cant control the other employees of the track or state testing barn or those who do mundane jobs where your horse may be exposed to including the pony boy or gate crew guy. Contact with anyone of those people, a guy who is on meth peeing in the stall, etc can trigger a positive at an extremely low level. The amount of a substance that needs to get into a horse is extremely low. They dont need to eat a meth sandwich to have 22 picograms show.

Dr Barker of LSU did a study on environmental contamination on the backside of the FG and found that horses could come into contact with levels of drugs virtually everywhere.

http://www.thehorse.com/articles/236...-at-racetracks

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Bullshit. You cant control everything. You cant know what your help is doing on a day to day basis when they arent at work. You cant control the other employees of the track or state testing barn or those who do mundane jobs where your horse may be exposed to including the pony boy or gate crew guy. Contact with anyone of those people, a guy who is on meth peeing in the stall, etc can trigger a positive at an extremely low level. The amount of a substance that needs to get into a horse is extremely low. They dont need to eat a meth sandwich to have 22 picograms show.

Dr Barker of LSU did a study on environmental contamination on the backside of the FG and found that horses could come into contact with levels of drugs virtually everywhere.

http://www.thehorse.com/articles/236...-at-racetracks

Millions of people use meth.

How many horses test bad for it?

If it was so easy to get a bad test via contamination -- why doesn't it happen more often?

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

Millions of people use meth.

How many horses test bad for it?

If it was so easy to get a bad test via contamination -- why doesn't it happen more often?

Because only winners get tested at a lot of tracks and at many tracks I'm not sure that they test for more than 2 or 3 common drugs including lasix. They HAVE to test for lasix because its on the program and they have to ensure that the horse has lasix in its system. However its a huge waste of money. KY has a brand new lab with new equipment and they test for a long laundry lit of substances.

Not to mention that different states may have a higher threshold for different drugs. People dont realize that what might be a positive in one state wouldnt be in another. the only positive test i had was for 9 nanograms of acepromazine when KY had zero tolerence (since changed) for that drug despite it being the most commonly used medication in horse sports. At that time LA had a 100 nanogram threshold. CA and NY had a 50 nanogram threshold. So the same sample in those states wouldnt have resulted in a bad test. Seems crazy but thats the truth.

Hell in Florida the tracks vets give the lasix AND they are also giving solu-delta on raceday that you declare at entry time. Its not listed anywhere that I'm aware of. If you gave the same medication in any other state you would get scratched and get a long suspension.

[Cannon Shell]

Its funny because its easy yet can also be hard to get a bad test. If every track ran "supertesting" on every horse i'm sure that you would see a ton of positive tests. Not necessarily because people are looking to cheat but because the rules are rarely absolutely clear.

I was educated by a vet who worled in both the field and lab who told me that the RMTC is using a 95% standard in their withdrawl times. That means that using those withdrawl times under normal circumstances the test will result in a negative test at least 95% of the time. That is scary from my view because if you run enough horses you may find yourself in that dreaded 5%. Of course you may have and skated because the lab wasnt testing for that med that day or your horse got beat a nose and wasnt sent for a test. Naturally you have no idea that any of this occurred because you may have followed the published rules to a T.

The attitude is that regulators are ok with this standard because positive tests make them look like they are doing a good job even if they crater public confidence. That is the reason that thresholds have been arbitrarily assigned without regard to effect on performance and why the zero tolerence politically correct push gets so much support.

The medication rules in this country are screwed up but in many ways not the way you think

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Because only winners get tested at a lot of tracks and at many tracks I'm not sure that they test for more than 2 or 3 common drugs including lasix. They HAVE to test for lasix because its on the program

Only 1 or 2 horses get tested. And they only test for lasix and 1 or 2 other drugs?

I guess he's just had some bad luck with the testing process. He had one test positive for Clenbuterol in 2013. He won the Meth contamination lottery in 2014. They searched his barn and found syringes and unlabeled bottles. His ROI stats have fallen off a cliff since.

I am sure he's Mother Teresa like everyone says he is -- but he's at least guilty of not having run a tight ship.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

Only 1 or 2 horses get tested. And they only test for lasix and 1 or 2 other drugs?

I guess he's just had some back luck with the testing process. He tested positive for Clenbuterol in 2013. He won the Meth contamination lottery in 2014. They searched his barn and found syringes and unlabeled bottles. His ROI stats have fallen off a cliff since.

I am sure he's Mother Teresa like everyone says he is -- but he's at least guilty of not having run a tight ship.

Depending on the jurisdiction the amount of substances tested for varies greatly.

I'm not saying that he is mother Teresa just that one horse testing positive at 20 picograms doesnt mean that he intentionally gave any horse meth. It probably means that he simply had a bit of extreme bad fortune.