Group working on drug rules

The racing industry group that is working on the production of model rules for drug use and testing in the United States was expected to hammer out many of the more contentious details of the policy during a daylong meeting Thursday in Los Angeles.

The policy has so far been kept confidential by the group, which was formed in late 2000 from an industry-wide selection of horsemen's groups, racing organizations, and industry officials. The group, now formally called the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, hopes to present the uniform-rules document on Dec. 10 at a meeting with racing commissioners in Tucson, Ariz., at the University of Arizona Racing Symposium.

The group's ultimate goal is to arrive at a working policy by the end of the first quarter of 2004. The policy would then be distributed to state racing commissions so that rules could be formally adopted into law.

The Thursday meeting was also called in order to review a list of potential grant recipients for research into medication use and drug-testing procedures, according to Dr. Scot Waterman, the head of the consortium and an official of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. The group was expected to select the grant recipients at the meeting.