by Frank Angst

In an effort to foster uniformity in drug testing of androgenic anabolic steroids, analysts from most of the United States laboratories came together to discuss the topic at a three-day workshop in late April.

Chemists from 16 of the official 18 U.S. laboratories and analysts representing seven international laboratories met from April 27-30 at the University of California at Davis. The chemist workshop was sponsored by the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium.

“I would like to thank all of the organizers and speakers for their hard work in putting together a very successful program,” RMTC Executive Director Scot Waterman said. “I would also like to thank the attendees for giving up their valuable time to attend so that as an industry, we can move forward together. The RMTC will continue to look for opportunities to sponsor workshops like these.”

Organized by Dr. Scott Stanley from the University of California at Davis and Dr. Richard Sams from the University of Florida, the three-day event featured internationally recognized authorities Dr. Don Catlin, former director of the UCLA Olympic Laboratory and current director of the Anti-Doping Research Institute, and Dr. Ed Houghton, developer of many of the methods used to detect and identify steroids and their metabolites in racehorses.

The workshop also provided participants with opportunities to witness analysts in the laboratory performing state-of-the-art doping control approaches needed to regulate anabolic steroids in horses racing.

Dr. Lawrence Soma from the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center and Dr. Catlin were featured speakers at dinners on Sunday and Monday/ Dr. Houghton provided a full day of lectures on anabolic steroids in horses. Dr. Rick Arthur from the California Horse Racing Board compared the urine thresholds for steroids in the U.S. to those adopted internationally, and led a discussion on regulatory control.

All participants were given copies of standard operating procedures as well as the latest scientific information for detecting and identifying steroids in horses.

Frank Angst is senior writer of Thoroughbred Times