Horse Show To Step Up Drug Tests

The Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration plans to step up drug tests on horses.

Officials of the horse show are working up a protocol - something that doesn't exist for the annual competition that determines the world's champion Tennessee walking horse every September.

"In order for there to be any kind of a penalty phase, there have got to be rules and regulations set up for this,'" said Dr. Doyle Meadows, CEO of the horse show. "Until there's a penalty protocol, they wouldn't know what they could or couldn't use."

Horses already have their hooves and hocks checked for signs of scarring, their fetlocks swabbed for chemical agents and their gaits studied for signs of abuse.


Random drug tests have been done at the last two shows.

"We're going to have a real serious set down to talk about what drugs will be acceptable," Dr. Mike Harry, the official horse show veterinarian.

In the past, some horses have been abused, or sored, in order to get them to have a high-stepping gait that judges prefer.

Harry, working on recommendations from the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine, selected Industrial Laboratories of Wheat Ridge, Colo., to perform drug screening analysis.

"Most of the other breeds have drug testing: the thoroughbreds, the equitation federation, AQHA (American Quarter Horse Association)," Meadows said. "But it's got to be fair and we've got to know what they can and can't use."

Harry is a part of a task force put in place to compile a list of medications that will be permitted, restricted or forbidden. United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) medication guidelines will be compared to facilitate this list.

"They have a protocol set up already and vets contracted," the Fayetteville veterinarian said. "We're going to try to pattern after them, and maybe even use their vets and labs."

Harry said the protocol would not be ready for some time, and at his most optimistic, it would be by the 2009 show. The competition dates back to 1939.

In 2006, several horses were disqualified at the show on grounds they had been sored. The show ended in controversy because of a dispute between federal inspectors and trainers.