cobalt

[arlington]

RE post #394 Hands up the silent majority Kyle? But mindful that whips and cobalt are two different things. We do have whip rules too, as you know, and participants try to adhere. I'd say stats would be 99% adherence. Plus, and this is without the spin we're seeing from the O'Brien & Co corner, whips are still needed for safety reasons. An unruly horse needing a bit of direction.


RE post #393 Well said Mister JayKO. Your sentiments should be the knock out punch to those in the Blue Corner.
One major aspect of cobalt supplementation that is, perhaps intentionally, being avoided by the Blue Corner is what Wade Birch Racing Qld Chief of Integrity reiterated this morning on racing radio RSN. That being out of competition/non race day testing. And the Vic rules are 200mcg race and non race day. Considering Danny making public his treatment regime and that international studies/research/ qualified opinions indicate long term cobalt jugging gives the EPO effect, one might question Danny & Co's protests of innocence big time. And there lays another facet. 200mcg race day won't catch the more knowledgeable Blue Corner participants from gaining an illegal advantage.

Just have to bring up hobby trainers, and yes echo Mister JayKO's emotive sentiments, and it's not always a case of " how can...". 'Jugging' has been around for decades. Justified in many genuine therapeutic instances. It may well just be a hobby trainer chooses not to go down the "progressive" course of concoctions. No doubt there are participants whose incomes aren't primarily derived from horse racing that have excellent vets, knowledgeable in many aspects of equine performance. The costs involved in getting the vet out not always a factor. Besides, it's not inhumane or illegal for a person to have gained skills under a vet's supervision or maybe they are a vet nurse or know such a person. They just want the sport to be a sport, a competition involving man and beast. May the best horse win, not the "best" vet. I can hear the Blue Corner, "a dinosaur, Buckley's hope of winning mate". But as Stu has alluded to, who didn't stand back, shook their head in disbelief with the unravelling of the Essendon supplement program.


Andrew Rule, love him or hate him. My thoughts, we've lived in the era of litigation for a decade or so. I'd think his editor would have the nod on what's published and would imagine the legal dept speed dial button is hit before the stories come out.

[Boydy]

I think that Cobalt in general sheds some light on the racing industry as a whole. Firstly I believe both codes should have done substantially more testing on the use of legitimate supplements and both there side effects, withholding period and whether the products do actually have any benefits.
Firstly, I refer to the testing conducted by HRNSW. The tests were done on 5 horses over 4 days. The testing on the horses was primarily conducted on blood samples as obviously urine cannot be taken at as regular intervals however the limits have been set on urine. If you have an alcoholic drink the effect on the blood and what comes out at the bottom end are surely not compatible so how is this information in anyway useful to setting a threshold with relation to retention periods. Despite this the urine tests after just 3 days of administration of 10ml Hemo 15 (Relatively small dose and a totally legal supplement) on two horses were over 200ug/L on the third day, but the raw data with levels in urine and time of sample have never been released. It appears that if treated regularly with a cobalt containing product there is definitely build up in cobalt retention over time and how substantial this has never been tested or proven.

http://www.harnessracingupdate.com/r.../hru011715.pdf

The article above about cobalt states some interesting information. A couple of interesting quotes from the article.

"Cobalt's reputation as a performance enhancer is likely over-exaggerated and is not supported by evidence."

"Currently, the California rule for Standardbreds testing higher than 25 ppb calls for the horse to be put on the vet's list until the animal clears its system of cobalt. Because the half-life of cobalt in the equine bloodstream is one week, a horse might not be able to race for up to two months."

The above comments do not in my opinion support information we are being given here in Australia, with firstly the drug being a Category 1 as well as the withholding period of Cobalt and there supplements. There is no doubt that some of the information in the article appears distressing but how can you tell the difference between Cobaly Chloride being directly injected and normal approved Cobalt containing supplements if they too can get over the threshold.

Lastly the article Controlling the Misuse of Cobalt in Horses and the associated research, recommends an out of raceday limit of 2000ug/Litre so it does not seem that levels of 2000ug/Litre are anywhere near dangerous or fatal so this is just hysteria. Also the research and paper in the Introduction states that the administering of these cobalt containg supplements should be banned not just on race day but the day prior to race day also, so perhaps this should be given as information and also included in be made into a local rule of harness racing.

[Messenger]

I think that Cobalt in general sheds some light on the racing industry as a whole. Firstly I believe both codes should have done substantially more testing on the use of legitimate supplements and both there side effects, withholding period and whether the products do actually have any benefits.
Firstly, I refer to the testing conducted by HRNSW. The tests were done on 5 horses over 4 days. The testing on the horses was primarily conducted on blood samples as obviously urine cannot be taken at as regular intervals however the limits have been set on urine. If you have an alcoholic drink the effect on the blood and what comes out at the bottom end are surely not compatible so how is this information in anyway useful to setting a threshold with relation to retention periods. Despite this the urine tests after just 3 days of administration of 10ml Hemo 15 (Relatively small dose and a totally legal supplement) on two horses were over 200ug/L on the third day, but the raw data with levels in urine and time of sample have never been released. It appears that if treated regularly with a cobalt containing product there is definitely build up in cobalt retention over time and how substantial this has never been tested or proven.

http://www.harnessracingupdate.com/r.../hru011715.pdf

The article above about cobalt states some interesting information. A couple of interesting quotes from the article.

"Cobalt's reputation as a performance enhancer is likely over-exaggerated and is not supported by evidence."

"Currently, the California rule for Standardbreds testing higher than 25 ppb calls for the horse to be put on the vet's list until the animal clears its system of cobalt. Because the half-life of cobalt in the equine bloodstream is one week, a horse might not be able to race for up to two months."

The above comments do not in my opinion support information we are being given here in Australia, with firstly the drug being a Category 1 as well as the withholding period of Cobalt and there supplements. There is no doubt that some of the information in the article appears distressing but how can you tell the difference between Cobaly Chloride being directly injected and normal approved Cobalt containing supplements if they too can get over the threshold.

Lastly the article Controlling the Misuse of Cobalt in Horses and the associated research, recommends an out of raceday limit of 2000ug/Litre so it does not seem that levels of 2000ug/Litre are anywhere near dangerous or fatal so this is just hysteria. Also the research and paper in the Introduction states that the administering of these cobalt containg supplements should be banned not just on race day but the day prior to race day also, so perhaps this should be given as information and also included in be made into a local rule of harness racing.

What do you make of this then, when you claim there can be a build up

The results showed that oral supplements had virtually no effect on cobalt levels. Whilst injectable cobalt supplements did have the potential to elevate urine cobalt levels over the Hong Kong threshold, this excess over the threshold was very short-lived, lasting only six to 11 hours.

http://www.theage.com.au/sport/horse...18-12sr08.html



As far as doubts about Cobalt being a performance enhancer

I am happy with the anecdotal evidence that NSW's highest readings were taken from winners

There is nothing positive to be said about cobalt in that link Boydy but somehow you sound like you think there is

[kung fu man]

I think that Cobalt in general sheds some light on the racing industry as a whole. Firstly I believe both codes should have done substantially more testing on the use of legitimate supplements and both there side effects, withholding period and whether the products do actually have any benefits.
Firstly, I refer to the testing conducted by HRNSW. The tests were done on 5 horses over 4 days. The testing on the horses was primarily conducted on blood samples as obviously urine cannot be taken at as regular intervals however the limits have been set on urine. If you have an alcoholic drink the effect on the blood and what comes out at the bottom end are surely not compatible so how is this information in anyway useful to setting a threshold with relation to retention periods. Despite this the urine tests after just 3 days of administration of 10ml Hemo 15 (Relatively small dose and a totally legal supplement) on two horses were over 200ug/L on the third day, but the raw data with levels in urine and time of sample have never been released. It appears that if treated regularly with a cobalt containing product there is definitely build up in cobalt retention over time and how substantial this has never been tested or proven.

http://www.harnessracingupdate.com/r.../hru011715.pdf

The article above about cobalt states some interesting information. A couple of interesting quotes from the article.

"Cobalt's reputation as a performance enhancer is likely over-exaggerated and is not supported by evidence."

"Currently, the California rule for Standardbreds testing higher than 25 ppb calls for the horse to be put on the vet's list until the animal clears its system of cobalt. Because the half-life of cobalt in the equine bloodstream is one week, a horse might not be able to race for up to two months."

The above comments do not in my opinion support information we are being given here in Australia, with firstly the drug being a Category 1 as well as the withholding period of Cobalt and there supplements. There is no doubt that some of the information in the article appears distressing but how can you tell the difference between Cobaly Chloride being directly injected and normal approved Cobalt containing supplements if they too can get over the threshold.

Lastly the article Controlling the Misuse of Cobalt in Horses and the associated research, recommends an out of raceday limit of 2000ug/Litre so it does not seem that levels of 2000ug/Litre are anywhere near dangerous or fatal so this is just hysteria. Also the research and paper in the Introduction states that the administering of these cobalt containg supplements should be banned not just on race day but the day prior to race day also, so perhaps this should be given as information and also included in be made into a local rule of harness racing.

This is from courtcase evidencs:
Mr Sanders corresponded with Terence Wan, the head of Racing Laboratory in Hong Kong whom Dr Wainscott regarded as one of the world's leading racing analysts. On 16 August 2013 Mr Wan sent an email to Mr Sanders in which he referred to the complication of 'normal use' of supplements containing cobalt. He also said:

"For raceday samples, as long as your rules prohibit all forms of injections on a raceday, a reasonable unpublished threshold might be considered at 60 µg/L in urine (based on a population of 981 samples and a risk of 1 in 10,000) or even 100 µg/L."

[Boydy]

Kevin, Like I said in the previous post the tests were only conducted with 10mg of Hemo -15 over 3 days. Why not give 20mg over 7 days? Nobody knows because the testing was never done. What would happen if a horse had 3 runs in 7 days and had a prerace shot of Hemo 15 the day before each start? Again it has never been tested and proven otherwise. Kevin, I ask you this question how many horses are tested for urine (not blood - prerace) that do not win. I don't need you to answer because I know the answer is virtually zero. Again, information can be manipulated any way you want.

Warren, of course the comments are based on the vet from Hong Kong a closed shot in terms of treatments given to horse. But as I have said above has HK ever had a horse that has been treated pre race day and had 4-5 starts in a fortnight. The answer is obviously NO. The HRNSW experiment clearly shows there is a cumulative effect from multiple treatments and as many harness horses race at much closer intervals than HK gallopers the appropriate research has never been conducted.

[Messenger]

Why not give 20mcg over 7 days? It is sounding more like chemistry class than horse-racing Adam

[p plater]

3 run in a week or 4-5 runs in a fortnight...harness yes, thoroughbreds never.

[Messenger]

http://www.theage.com.au/sport/horse...20-12u7u5.html

For those who suggested that the newspapers would let the Cobalt story slide, you had better believe that The Age does not want to.
Chief racing writer, Patrick Bartley, would seem to be mirroring the approach that chief footballer writer Caroline Wilson took to the Essendon doping scandal
As Caro rightly kept player welfare to the fore, it is good to see Patrick honing in on animal welfare.

(I reckon he has read your link Boydy - I would not be totally surprised if this thread put him onto it)

[Boydy]

Bailey that's my point exactly, comparing apples with oranges.
Kevin, it is naive to think that chemistry does not play s part in all racing and sport in general.
I have to admit I have a vested interest in this issue.
Out of all the positives in NSW I believe there is one genuinely innocent participant. The big issue is withholding periods. Imagine if you gave a horse a start and it received a positive swab due to the hotse husbandry of the previous trainer. The facts will eventually come out.
As for the story in the Age what a beat up. Let's ban all horse supplements, and jumps racing

[Messenger]

If you take the two extremes - open slather v banning all supplements. (I have caught the exaggeration bug too)
It would be an interesting debate.
Believe me, I am not naive about what goes on in racing - it does not mean we have to like the infiltration of chemistry
Seeing as though you want to throw in jumps racing - if we are not careful with the public image of racing it could become as scorned upon as much as jumps racing (correctly or incorrectly)