Originally Posted by
triplev123
[VVV] Bute stops physically (pharmacologically) working/having the initially desired effect after about 12hrs & is no risk gone for all money by 24hrs...BUT it can still be picked up in a swab well beyond 96hrs...up to as far out as a further 156 post administration & well and truly ast the time when its anti-inflamatory effects have worn off...and that's fair is it?
More often than not trainers will get picked up for a bee's dick amount of the drug and its associated metabolite...an amount who's presence does not amount to a knob of goat shit as far as any anti-inflamatory effetc is concerned...and for mine that's not negligence nor is it cheating on their part...rather, it's just plain absurd.
Bute positives are more often than not recorded by honest trainers who are just trying to keep their horses well enough to race consistently. Nothing more, nothing less.
Placing then publishing a threshold for Bute is not as you've suggested 'moving the goal posts to suit a small number of trainers'. It is instead putting a very definite figure out there for the benefit of all concerned, big and small, pro and amatuer, & one that beyond which you face the consequences, below which you are free to go.
Publishing a threshold (ala TC02's) is simply placing a maximum figure on the presence of phenylbutazone/oxyphenylbutazone in a swab...where currently and VERY notably, there isn't one...and that absence of any figure Leigh, that is an absolute bloody disgrace.
The sensitivity of the Bute test and other such tests is so great that they are simply unrealistic in terms of the actual effect a given drug is having in respect to the amount that is able to be detected.
Similarly, the test for Opiates is so sensitive that you can give your horse a shot of Penicillin and go for a row many days later by way of the test picking up the metabolites of the Procaine that's included in the injection as a local anasthetic. LUDICROUS.
Something else that's worth thinking about...testing for Bute, TC02's ect is a pretty simple exercise & so it is a relatively 'cheap' and so 'highly visible' form of enforcement.
It serves the purposes of many in administration throughout Australia & NZ to hang their hats on such testing as far as them being officially charged with producing a level playing field for participants is concerned...when, in the big scheme of things, Bute & TC02 positives are seriously small potatoes.
Whilever we continue to bog ourselves down in discussions over aspects such as these, ones which by rights should have been well & truly put to bed years ago, there are many bigger issues that continue to go unaddressed.