Drug Research Council recommends two-tier cobalt threshhold

LEXINGTON – On Tuesday, an offshoot of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission voted to recommend the state adopt a two-tier threshold level for cobalt, the naturally occurring mineral shown to be abused worldwide in horseracing sports.

The Kentucky Equine Drug Research Council voted to recommend a threshold level that will consider any finding of cobalt in excess of 50 parts per billion in the blood as a Class B violation, which requires a suspension of the trainer for 15 to 60 days. A secondary threshold of a concentration above 25 parts per billion but below 50 parts per billion would require a horse to be placed on the vet’s list until it tests below the 25 ppb limit.

The approval by the KEDRC makes it highly likely the full commission will approve the threshold as well. The two-tier threshold has been recommended by two national organizations that recommend medication policies for racing.

Two members of the KEDRC voted against the recommendation, the Standardbred veterinarian Andy Roberts and Rick Hiles, a trainer who is the president of the Kentucky Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association. While both stated they believed high cobalt concentrations should be penalized, they raised concerns about a horse testing above the 25 ppb threshold due to routine vitamin supplements.

Commission personnel tested hundreds of horses that raced at the Keeneland spring meet for cobalt concentrations, and they found the highest concentration registered approximately 14 ppb. The calculated mean of the concentrations was 2.29 ppb, which regulators across the world consider the approximate natural level for a horse based on ingestion of the mineral through feed products.

Dr. Mary Scollay, the equine medical director of the commission and member of the KEDRC, said a handful of Standardbred horses that raced at the Red Mile last year tested well above the threshold level, with several testing in the 800-1,200 ppb range.

“It was clear cobalt was being abused” at the track prior to the commission announcing it would begin testing for the substance, Scollay said.

Horsemen allegedly have been administering substances with high concentrations of cobalt under the belief it has a blood-doping effect because of cobalt’s role in the generation of oxygen-carrying red blood cells, a process known as erythropoiesis. No scientific studies have demonstrated such an effect, and a study performed recently at the KHRC’s commission lab showed no effect on erythropoiesis from high concentrations of cobalt, Dr. Scollay said.

“We’ve pretty much ruled out it’s a blood-doping agent,” Dr. Scollay said.

However, it’s possible the substance could have other unknown performance-enhancing effects, Scollay said.

Extremely high cobalt concentrations are toxic and have dangerous short-term health impacts on a horse, studies have shown.

Regulators have approached the question of how to devise a threshold level for cobalt by relying on what normal concentrations are in a healthy horse.

Although cobalt is an essential mineral, most studies have shown horses in competitive equine sports have more than enough for basic biological processes at concentrations well below 10 ppb, and getting a horse to test above a concentration of 25 ppb would require the intravenous administration of a substance with extremely high levels of the mineral.

“There is no documented cobalt deficiency in the equine,” Dr. Scollay said. “There is not a defense for using those products with high cobalt concentrations.”

Hiles said he was concerned a trainer could claim a horse that had been administered high doses of the drug and then have the horse test positive in its next start for the new trainer (provided the horse was not tested after the first claiming race). Cobalt has a half-life of approximately a week, so a horse with a concentration of 800 ppb at the time of the claim would not test below the 50 ppb threshold for more than four weeks.

That led the KEDRC to have a discussion about whether all horses that are claimed should be tested, with the KHRC legal counsel pointing out that Kentucky racing rules give horsemen the right to void a claim if a horseman requests and pays for a drug test of the claimed horse. After a brief discussion, the KEDRC voted unanimously to recommend the full racing commission consider the possibility of requiring the testing of all claimed horses.

The KEDRC also voted to recommend a threshold level for gamma-aminobutyric acid, a naturally produced inhibitory neurotransmitter that also is an ingredient in a supplement called Carolina Gold. Scollay said artificially high levels of GABA had been found in horses prior to state regulatory veterinarians taking over raceday administrations of the regulated anti-bleeding medication furosemide in fall 2012, but none had been found since, indicating horsemen were once administering the supplement on raceday.