And this from the USA


Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, said that Cobalt

is definitely a drug that can be used as a

performance-enhancer.

"People believe is that it causes the bone marrow to

stimulate more blood cells. It's not unlike EPO," she said.

Gural said he first became aware of Cobalt when hearing

rumors that a trainer with a long list of violations on his

record was offering to sell it to people. No racing state was

testing for the drug, so Gural took samples collected by his

investigator Brice Cote and sent them to a lab in Hong Kong,

where the excessive Cobalt levels showed up. Yet, he

doesn't believe he has solved the problem.

"The real problem is that this is a drug that disappears

from the system very quickly," he said. "That makes it hard

for us to pick it up. My guess is that with the two really bad

cases where the trainers were banned their horse probably

got this stuff a half an hour before we tested the horses. We

were probably lucky to catch them."