Kentucky lab to stop drug testing horses

LEXINGTON, Ky. – LGC, an accredited drug-testing laboratory in Lexington, has told its clients that it will no longer conduct drug-testing of horses starting later this year, according to Kentucky racing officials.

The lab’s most prominent client is the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, which has worked closely with the lab’s director, Dr. Rick Sams, since the lab opened in 2011. However, the KHRC is not expecting to be impacted significantly by LGC’s exit from the market, according to the commission’s equine medical director, Dr. Mary Scollay, because the commission had issued a request-for-proposals to conduct its drug-testing services earlier this month.

“We’re actually in a position to have a pretty seamless transition,” Scollay said.

The KHRC’s contract with LGC expires in late June. Scollay said that the laboratory will continue to conduct drug testing for Kentucky throughout the length of the contract.

Sams did not immediately return a phone call on Tuesday morning.

The exit by LGC was first reported by the Paulick Report.

The Lexington laboratory is part of a large international network of labs under the LGC banner that conduct a variety of scientific operations aside from drug testing of animals. The Lexington lab is one of nine drug-testing facilities in the U.S. accredited by the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium.

The Lexington lab’s parent company had high hopes for the facility when it opened in 2011, but a backlog of cases in 2014 led several high-volume jurisdictions, including Delaware and Indiana, to cancel their contracts and reach agreements with other labs.

Scollay said that the KHRC issued the request-for-proposals because its new contract will require the commission’s laboratory to conduct expanded out-of-competition testing. The KHRC had not been notified at the time the RFP was issued that LGC planned to exit the market, Scollay said.