A History of Drugs in Racing

By Ryan Goldberg ir Barton was doped. No less an Sauthority than John Hervey, the legendary journalist who wrote under the pen name Salvator, declared this, reluctantly, on Dec. 24, 1932, in the long-gone Thoroughbred Record. “I may just as well say here that while Sir Barton was a really wonderful performer, rumor – whether correctly or not – was persistent to the effect that he was what is known in slang parlance as a ‘hop horse’. On account of which the prediction was also made that he would not score a great success as a sire.” Sir Barton’s dam, Lady Sterling, also raced on stimulants, her owner John E. Madden asserted after her career. Madden thought it made a good broodmare. Hops were stimulants, used more or less selectively to win Sir Barton, Kentucky Derby, 1919 an important race. H.G. Bedwell, Sir Barton’s trainer, had at times been ruled off the track for their use. to speed up a horse but also push it Unlike previous eras, the matter to compete through complications or of legality is now hazy. This is the Still, Bedwell and Sir Barton rest unfelt pain, or to add strength to an legacy of permissive medication. comfortably in the Hall of Fame. already-powerful yet brittle frame. Medication can be used legally, based Which speaks a truth about the on a level each state sets individually, history of drugs in racing, the “...In the last 110 or used illegally by going over that spotlight of this story. Sir Barton’s era level (what trainers like to call “an was an untamed period for hopping overage”); there are drugs like Cobra horses, so much so that it was a years there have venom or Erythropoietin which are necessity even for those who wished always illegal, and then there are not to. For as long as races have been been incredible drugs that occupy a gray area, not run in America, there have been legal in spirit but without tests for horsemen eager to win them with changes in the their existence. The penalties for whatever substance was at hand – a misconduct differ by state, often hundred years ago heroin and cocaine, types of drugs and case by case. They rarely add up – fifty years ago adrenaline in oil and the fifth violation merits the same Benzedrine, and in decades since their intended punishment as the first. The horse, manufactured drugs like Butazolidin as evidenced by its abridged career and Winstrol and Ventipulmin. Every purpose.” nowadays, is probably worse for the decade has stories shouting from wear. rooftops that racing is tainted. This One major divergence comes via the headline – “Dope: Evil of the Turf” – One of the first doping trials occurred fully-stocked arsenal of medications in 1890, in Canada, for the owners once ran in the New York Times. No, available to horsemen today, the not in 2012, but 1903. George Renwick and Frank Baldwin. sight of which would have shocked According to a paper written by John However, this isn’t meant to trainers from another time. Different, Gleaves for the British journal “Sport offer moral cover to our era. To the too, is that contemporary drugs, in History,” the owners were let contrary, in the last 110 years there based on sound medicine, work: off, but the judge lectured them on have been incredible changes in the modern pharmacology show that the types of drugs and their intended dishonest practices at the track and “hops” popular in stables during the “advised them not to engage in any purpose. For the first half of the 20th first half of the century – cocaine, century, trainers used stimulants or strychnine, mercury, morphine – of the disgraceful tricks so common narcotics meant to get a horse to run in all probability offer little to no at races on American soil.” faster; after World War II, a panoply performance-enhancement and likely To “dope” – to stupefy with a drug of pharmacological drugs entered have deleterious effects. Even alcohol – could go both ways, to help a horse stables, and their purposes grew: was tried in the early days; a quart of win or stop him. Doping had an to manage pain or treat bleeding or whisky before the race, because if it expressed purpose: to make a score sedate or build muscle mass, not only worked for you than maybe the horse too. on a fixed race. The purses were 1 | TDN MAGAZINE, MAY 2, 2013 miniscule then, and hence the risk The drugs used were simple then narcotics like morphine and heroin, of acting on inside information was but over time grew in sophistication remained commonplace, and their deemed worth it. and application. Hervey noted presence on the backstretch attracted American racing was not even 30 major changes, writing in 1932: unsavory characters looking for a “The latter-day stimulants are fix, like a man named “Railroad Red” years old before anti-doping rules much more deleterious than their who served as a guinea pig to test the were passed. The Jockey Club, in 1897, forerunners of thirty to thirty-five purity of heroin before it was given introduced a rule to “put an end to years ago. Moreover, the system of to horses. Low doses of narcotics, the the reprehensible practice of ‘doping’ administration was different. Horses thinking went, would take the edge horses.” Doping, as they defined it, were not, at that time, drugged off a skittish horse before its race. was injecting under the skin of a horse continuously, consistently and some liquid stimulant or opiate, Stories like this gathered such as cocaine or morphine. But weight until the Turf was struck the rationale offered for reform with its most serious blow. For rarely concerned the health of a year, Harry Anslinger, the the horses or the jockeys, but commissioner of the Federal gambling. The men of The Jockey Bureau of Narcotics, had his Club were wealthy owners, often agents monitoring strange wagered large sums, and they occurrences at racetrack stables. wanted fair competition. In 1933, Anslinger pounced: claiming he had evidence of 200 A New York Times exposé separate incidents of doping in 1901 credited “Doc” Ring, a nationally; he arrested dozens regular on the New Jersey tracks, of owners, trainers and stable with originating the practice hands, accusing them of using of injecting stimulants to dope heroin and cocaine in violation a horse. Rather than accept of federal laws. Inaction was no payment, Ring demanded that longer viable – either doping, or the horse’s owner place a bet the perception of doping, had to for him. This was a form of be stopped. protection against claims that he France had a saliva test in might have stopped a horse if he place for two decades, which ran poorly. The Times reported after some study was imported. that Ring’s concoction was Florida put this into practice and composed of “nitro-glycerine, passed a stimulant ban in 1933. cocaine, carbolic acid, and Trainers were so opposed that rose water.” Probably harmful, they nearly boycotted Hialeah’s his stimulant later included then-Florida Derby, which “strychnine, capsicum, ginger” became the Flamingo, until track and other unknown ingredients. president Joe Widener spoke to Doping lurked behind every a group of about 150 owners and inexplicable event on the track. trainers. “Gentlemen,” he told them, “training is no longer a In 1903, the Times called doping matter of skill. It has become a “the scandal of the racing question of formula. There isn’t season.” Recognizing that for a man in this room who can gambling purposes its nature had hold up his hand and truthfully broadened, officials changed the say he has never stimulated language in anti-doping statutes a horse.” His challenge was from “stimulating” to “affected” accepted by general laughter, the speed of a horse. since it was true. The trainers who doped The original saliva test, in which their horses were far from systematically, each and every time the specimen was crystallized professionals. The Thoroughbred they went to the post. The practice and examined by microscope, was Record, on May 23, 1903, told the story was utilized more specifically upon more or less intended for three drugs: of a good horse named Dr. Riddle. His some occasion when high stakes morphine, heroin, and strychnine, trainer, William Howell, injected him were being played for – not as an according to Dr. John McAllister with “12 grains of cocaine” – which every-day thing.” Kater, the original chief scientist of affected his speed but in the wrong the anticrime Thoroughbred Racing way. He lost his nerve so completely This condition was tolerated on Protective Bureau (TRPB), which that he was afraid to break. That the turf for 30 years. Caffeine was opened in 1946. Unhappy with its afternoon, he gave up the ghost, a the most popular stimulant of all oversight function, Kater resigned “victim to the wiles of man.” the drugs at the time. Harder stuff, in disgust at the end of 1953. For Life TDN MAGAZINE, MAY 2, 2013 | 2 in 1955, he wrote a whistleblower’s account on the practice of doping. The saliva test, Kater claimed, was not able to catch the popular amphetamine Benzedrine, or “bennies,” if injected, but the urine test that followed curbed that. Urine testing was simple and cheap to use, but both were necessary, since heroin or morphine often sneaked past this new test. By the 1940s, most tracks were testing saliva and urine. That said, Kater declared in Life that “it is still easy to dope a horse and get away it.” When Kater started at the TRPB, he called drug manufacturers who gave him lists of their customers for various drugs that could be used to hop horses.

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