Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Title: "There is always a well-known solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong

"In a statement issued on April 6, Sheikh Mohammed asserted that a horse he had ridden in international competition tested positive for guanabenz, used to treat hypertension, and a metabolite of stanozolol, an anabolic steroid."

The above came from an article I saw this morning.

I know an old timer that told me he trained his endurance horses on steroids to build strength and then pulled them off a few months prior to doing rides so the drug would not be there but the "positive" effect of the training would be there. He was quite successful. This was the standard from the racing world and he spent some time there.

Today it looks like this has starting to impact endurance riding at the FEI level. Drugs have become a major issue in human sports. The TB industry is trying to clean up their house. The only way to really stop this abuse is continuous random testing (not just at events) - much that is done in the human running world. The AERC drug testing program most likely has a snow balls chance in Hell catching this type of abuse and it is this type of abuse that is that will have the worse impact on the health of the horse and on the sport.

Something to think about. The use of steroids is not a science fiction conjecture in endurance riding - it has happened. Right now it has only been found in FEI level riding in one country. How pervasive is it? Has it filtered out to other countries and to lower levels of endurance - maybe by some who have dreams of international glory? Do we know?  From what I was told some years back by someone who did use a regiment of steroids to condition suscessful endurance horses - it has happened in the AERC by someone that wanted to win and he did win a lot.

Truman

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"There is always a well-known solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong." H. L. Mencken