Medications issues aren’t only centered on the work to create a uniform medication policy for racehorses, but on “renegade” drug manufacturers—who produce products that are not legal and contain little, none, or too much of various ingredients—and compounded drugs, which are not the same as “generic” drugs in the human market.

“People want the problem of racehorse medication solved, and the only way to accomplish that is uniform medication rules and testing standards,” said Rick Arthur, DVM, a racetrack practitioner in California and a member of the Racing Medication and Drug Testing Consortium. He reviewed the progress made in this area for the AAEP Racing Forum meeting Dec. 4. This has been a hot topic in the Thoroughbred industry since the idea of creating a national policy on race-day medication was unveiled prior to last year’s convention.

Arthur, a past president of the AAEP, said the group is operating under the basic principle that horses should not run under the influence of medications on race day with the exception of furosemide, commonly called Salix (formerly Lasix). He said there still are some areas of discussion on other race-day medications, especially ancillary medications currently used to control bleeding in some states (such as Maryland). The consortium also is operating under the assumption that one of a limited number of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, such as phenylbutazone ) could be used up to the day before a race, but with regulated limits that have yet to be defined, and will be conservative.

One of the important details to be resolved is whether to use threshold levels for medications or withdrawal times in regulating medications. “There are some technical and philosophical differences that still need to be sorted out,” Arthur said