Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Mary Krauss said:

> I don't understand the hostility surrounding drug
> ?regulations. What am I missing??
?
What you appear to be missing is that one of the substances that appears on the 
AERC's prohibited substances list (and more than one for all I know) is a 
compound that occurs "naturally in simple grain."? And as such, if one wants to 
adhere to the rule as written one cannot feed grain to one's horse.
?
> Seems to me a set of pretty well-intended,
?
Well-intended does not equate with well-written.? Well-intended rules that 
aren't well-written (or well thought out?before being written) offen suffer 
from unintended condequences.
?
> "Zero tolerance" means zero tolerance for abuse
> --it doesn't refer to zero amounts of substances
> ?that occur naturally in simple grain and hay. 
?
Not everybody would necessarily interpret "zero tolerence" in this way although 
the words "zero tolerance" aren't used in the rule (so we have evidence of?at 
least one person reading something into the rule that isn't actually written 
there)?so it isn't necessary to decide how "zero tolerance" is interpreted, but 
rather how "prohibited substance" is interpreted.? I interpret "prohibited 
substance" to mean "you may not give this or anything containing this to your 
horse."? If there are other people who have other interpretations of 
"prohibited substance" I would be interested to know what that interpretation 
is.? And if, like Mary (I think), you interpret it to mean "don't abuse the 
substance" then I would like to have know the definition of "abuse" you are 
using.
?
> ?The good news is that the situation brings us
> ?back to exercising judgment--not at all a bad result.
?
Personally, _I_ didn't have a problem with the old rule that required people to 
exercise their own judgement with respect to how they defined "drug" but lots 
of people were unhappy with it, so they decided to stop relying on people's 
judgement in this respect and decided to make a list of "prohibited substances" 
(whether everybody, in their own judgement,?would consider them drugs or 
not).?And then, by including gamma-oryzanol on this list of prohibited 
substances (without any caveat acknowledging that it is a common component of 
many regular feed stuffs and so is allowed in amounts below a certain 
threshold), the AERC currently has a rule that, if interpreted the way that it 
is written,?says, "You can't feed bran or oats to your competing endurance 
horse."
?
I very much dislike some of the attitudes I have read about this (I am hoping) 
unintended consequence of having included bran and whole oats as prohibited 
substances (from my understanding of gamma-oryzanol, it might be that hulless 
oats don't have gamma-oryzanol in them, but I don't know this for sure).
?
Truman's and Terry's attitude seems to be "they don't or can't test for it so 
it doesn't matter if it is on the list." Or, it's okay to break the rules as 
long as you don't or can't get caught doing so.
?
And Mary's and Tom's attitude seems to be "it wasn't what I think was intended 
so it doesn't apply to what I am doing." Or, it's okay to break the rules as 
long as you don't think the rules actually mean what they say.
?
I thoroughly dislike both of these attitudes about rules.
?
I would prefer that the vet committee take gamma-oryzanol off the list of 
prohibited substances.? That way _I_ can comply with the rule as written, which 
is what I want to do. I wish that everybody else did too, but this is less 
important to me.? What matters to me is that _I_ would like to be able to enter 
an endurance ride without having to do what _I_ consider to be cheating (i.e. 
breaking the rules as written).
?
I especially would like gamma-oryzanol to be removed from the list of 
prohibited substances not only because it pretty much cannot be avoided, but 
also that, from my limited investigations, there is no evidence that it should 
be on the list even if it COULD be avoided.? 
?
kat
Orange County, Calif.


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