Steroids Around the World

[BitPlayer]

http://www.drf.com/news/article/70682.html

The salient portion:

Whilly, the winner of three turf stakes in the last year, had his trip to the $2.3 million Hong Kong Cup later this month canceled after he tested positive for an anabolic steroid in a prerace test required by Hong Kong officials, trainer Doug O\'Neill said.

O\'Neill said the steroid, which was administered in October, could have cleared Whilly\'s system before an additional prerace test was conducted, but O\'Neill did not want to take any chances of shipping the 4-year-old and having another positive occur.

Hong Kong has a zero tolerance for anabolic steroids. In the event that Whilly had tested positive again, the cost of traveling to Hong Kong would not have been paid by the host organization, but would have been billed to the owner, Triple B Farms.

\"It\'s a legal medication here,\" O\'Neill said. \"I\'m not pleased to say I use it. It helps the horses recover from strenuous exercise.\"

[TGJB]

Bit-- yeah, this is interesting, all right. Presumably we\'ll find out exactly WHICH steroid soon.

I didn\'t forget about the wind question, but I need someone who knows their way around our data base better than me to do it. Hopefully later today.

[basket777]

Can you say cigar?  Remember how well his offspring are doing.

[NoCarolinaTony]

That\'s why they Call him Drug O\'neill.

NC Tony

[P.Eckhart]

Pre travel test makes sense, after all, Michael Dickinson, Ian Jory & Neil Drysdale have all been sent home from Honkers red faced and runless because of steroids.

[richiebee]

Basket:

 Cigar is one prominent example of a high performance animal who for whatever reason was unable to procreate.

 The reality is that today\'s stallions are being bred 180 times per year in two different hemispheres; 15 years ago, stallions were bred no more than 60 times per year.

 To say that medications administered to stallion prospects when they were racing have affected their potency does not recognize the increased productivity of today\'s stallions. A better question might be what pharmaceuticals are being used to allow these stallions to be bred to so many mares each year.

[davidrex]

richie bee,

Well put and very intriguing.Hopefully the end result,(the foal) will not be affected...but of course a drug regiman will be prescribed for that also.

Maybe in the sales catalog there will be an asternick disclosing all the \"crack babies\".