RMTC funding 2019 research into blood doping, nerve blocking

An industry-funded medication research and advisory group will fund two research projects designed to develop new screening methods for blood-doping drugs and detect a nerve-blocking agent that could be abused in horses, the group announced on Wednesday.

The two projects, with a combined budget of $250,000, were approved by the board of the industry group, the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, at a meeting on Monday. The RMTC annually selects research projects for funding as part of its mission to develop policies and procedures to combat illicit drug use in racing.

The project involving blood-doping drugs such as erythropoietin is designed to develop a less expensive screening method for the prohibited medications and detect a broader range of the drugs at lower doses, according to the RMTC. The project will be conducted by the University of California-Davis Kenneth L. Maddy Laboratory, which last year received funding for an RMTC-approved project that sought to improve detection of EPO-type drugs. Those new tests have improved detection of the drugs “exponentially,” the RMTC said.

While EPO-type drugs have long been the subject of rumored abuse in Thoroughbred racing, based partly on the abuse of the drugs in human performance sports, regulators have returned very few positive tests for the drugs in out-of-competition testing. The RMTC said that the new research project would focus partly on detecting minute traces of the drug, in an attempt to determine whether the drug is being administered in “micro-doses,” a term referring to the repeated administration of small amounts of the drug in order to mimic effects of large doses at longer intervals.

The second research project, to be conducted by the University of Florida Racing Laboratory, will attempt to develop a test for liposomal bupivacaine, a local anesthetic that could be used to deaden pain in a horse. Local anesthetics can interfere with pre-race veterinary examinations, endanger horses by allowing them to run through pain, and act as a performance enhancer.

Liposomal bupivacaine, which is marketed under the name Exparel, was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a local anesthetic for limited post-operative uses in humans in 2011. The FDA approved an additional post-operative use of the drug in 2018.

“The RMTC is excited to be spearheading efforts to fight the abuse of this nerve-blocking agent on the racetrack,” said Alex Waldrop, the chairman of the RMTC’s board.

Also at the board meeting, the RMTC created a subcommittee to examine potential research projects to address the use of bisphosphonates, a class of drugs that are used to treat bone loss and have been rumored to be in use in the preparation of young horses for sales.