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Cobalt threshold of 200µg/L condones abuse?
West Australian Racing
Rodent
7,470 posts
A group of respected horse veterinarians from around Australia are dismayed at the direction the cobalt debate has taken.
They have contacted Fairfax Media to express their deep concerns over the misuse of cobalt and their fears of animal welfare. They contend that some sections of the racing media have allowed the Victorian trainers whose horses returned high cobalt readings to criticise Racing Victoria officials, even to the point of suggesting "entrapment".
The vets said: "What about the horse? Who is looking after the health and welfare of the horse?
"The real debate here is one of animal welfare and even perhaps animal cruelty."
They say there can be no doubt about the toxicity of cobalt as a heavy metal poison. "There is an actual case study from a brewery in Canada in the mid-1960s where cobalt was added to the beer which very quickly led to over 50 Quebec beer drinkers developing heart disease and 20 of these beer drinkers died.
"When the cobalt additive was stopped, so did the deaths and the brewery was closed down soon after."
The group maintains chronic or long-term poisoning by cobalt, which is usually irreversible, is just as important as the acute toxicity. The heavy metal accumulates in the body over time and can affect the brain, heart, liver and kidneys, they say.
They point to an article last month that reported a huge medical class action lawsuit in Australia involving cobalt. The report said thousands of patients who had had metal-on-metal hip replacements were claiming that the implants were leaching cobalt into local tissue and, as a result, were poisoning them.
The companies that manufactured the implants were the subject of class actions in Australia and the US.
The vets were at pains to point out that horses do not need cobalt and that there has never been any report of cobalt deficiency in horses.
Cobalt is needed to produce vitamin B12, but a horse on a balanced diet gets enough dietary B12. However, if one wanted to supplement the horse, it would be appropriate to use vitamin B12 directly, not cobalt, they said.
"The Victorian and Australian threshold of 200 micrograms/litre urine represents cobalt in the body at toxic levels, as the normal level of cobalt is less than 10 mcg/litre. Cobalt has been widely identified as a blood doping agent which is why it is banned in all sports, and also why it has come on to the radar of horseracing here and around the world," they said.
"The human sports medicine community is constantly warning athletes of the dangers of cobalt abuse; this means that a human athlete using cobalt has made a conscious decision to ignore these warnings in the pursuit of performance enhancement. Horses don't have that luxury.
"In racing we entrust animal welfare to the trainers and their veterinarians. However, watching over are the racing regulators who need to step in when the system is failing the horse.This welfare role of racing regulators is non-negotiable. It is as important a role as that of looking after the integrity of racing and creating a level playing field. For without the regulators enforcing animal welfare, there is a chance it might get lost in the mire of gambling and winning."
The vets also questioned the source of cobalt as they believed it was implausible that cobalt readings over the Australian threshold of 200 mcg/litre could be achieved through the proper use of normal cobalt-containing supplements.
They pointed to the recent case of disgraced trainer Darren Smith in NSW who admitted using a "bootleg" cobalt supplement obtained from a warned-off harness racing identity.
There is also the ongoing investigation into the Victorian veterinary surgeon who has admitted to RV stewards that he bought cobalt, repackaged it in his "kitchen" and then provided it to between eight and 12 local horse trainers.
The idea that a vet would supply non-proprietary cobalt to horse trainers to boost performance is deeply troubling.
Cobalt first came to light in the United States in January 2014 via the online "Paulick Report" from Kentucky. It detailed the banning of horses with high cobalt readings from the privately owned racetrack the Meadowlands and the ongoing investigation into seven cases of sudden death in one Californian thoroughbred racing stable.
More recently in the US, the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium announced a uniform threshold for cobalt across the US. The consortium consists of leading chemists, pharmacologists, regulatory veterinarians and racetrack veterinarians from across the US horse racing industry.
Dr Rick Arthur, the RMTC secretary and California's equine medical director, said: "This proposal is designed to protect the health and welfare of the racehorse", and that the new plasma levels (25ppb) were exactly equivalent to the 100-200 international urine thresholds. However, Racing Commissioners International president Ed Martin went further and predicted that deliberate cobalt administration would be banned due to equine welfare concerns. The RCI is the law maker and the US equivalent of the Australian Racing Board.
Martin cited complaints made to regulatory veterinarians in several jurisdictions that cobalt administration had caused distress and colic in horses, creating cramps, muscle twitching, sweating and pain. "We believe it is wrong to deliberately put a horse in discomfort with no compelling medical reason to treat the horse," he said. "This issue is about the horse and not just about doping."
Comments
It also underlines how vital it is for independent postmortem examination's of all horses that drop dead in and out of training from heart attack.
Two years ago I was happy to go along blissfully thinking that everything was in order and nobody was seeking to gain an advantage with anything. But consistently I heard things that made me laugh at how preposterous that suggestion was, and to my embarrassment, those suggestions have come true. Now the people saying stuff to me didn't know what the 'gear' was called, or who was using it, and to me it just sounded like a lot of sour grapes of people talking out of their kick. But it turns out that there was something.
So now today we have people who like to have a bet with confidence, saying that our product is less than that. Turnover is down some folks say as a result. Certainly in real numbers, people don't go to the races anymore, less people come to sales in WA, even less horses are being bred this season as the Industry becomes less sustainable.
Now this is not the fault of just Cobalt scandals, but it doesn't bloody help. It appears to me, and RWWA can educate me differently if they like, but it appears that they operate in hindsight, doing almost nothing to prevent, and when they do get a positive from an ever shrinking pool of samples due to cost cutting, the offenders are allowed to come up with ludicrous declarations of how it happened.
Real honest Trainers, are there are plenty of them in WA, who wouldn't dream of looking for the next wonder drug because it is not in their nature to try to seek an unfair advantage, now despair at the future of the Racing Industry, because the lights are on but nobody is home.
If you step outside of Horse Racing for a moment, and think about say Olympic competition, what would be the chances of an additive or manufactured substance being allowed into competition without prior approval ? Even an aspirin can land a competitor into strife.
What I am strongly suggesting, is that if it walks like a duck, then it is most likely a duck.
If I had a licence and was handed something too good to be true, I would ring someone and ask for a legal position on it's use. But that is just me. What other people do is their business, but don't try to create a defense of ignorance, so that makes it all OK.
That is easy enough to understand then.
Can I also ask, if you perceive my comments as being negative towards the Racing Industry, what level of commentary would not be other than to have no comment at all ? Would it be better if reports like this one linked to this thread, were never given the light of day and openly discussed ?
If we can establish that, the next time a Trainer or an Owner laments to me in casual conversation about a level playing field, I will just tell them your definition as my opinion is clearly at odds with yours.
I have a feeling that some trainers were using cobalt and had no idea it was cobalt, it was just the next best thing.....How naive are they??
It was just the next additive that seems to be getting results....and lets not forget that some cobalt importation has been linked to WA "vets" already. So it was here, but no-one was using it???? pleeeeeasse
H-BOMBER likes this post.
they'd not eat the termites?
RIO likes this post.
be interesting to know what the attraction is...as I said probably left over bodily secretions..could not be much else.
Neither has seemed to happen so far. Interestingly others I have had in the same paddock have shown no interest
The_Bull likes this post.
The_Bull likes this post.
The lowest reading was 0.1mcg/L, the highest was 78mcg/L and the average 5.3mcg/L.
A 200mcg/L threshold seems pretty generous.
Give us a break, get rid of the cheats.
RIO likes this post.