Glaucine Positives Overturned

Published: June 29, 2016 04:23 pm EDT

The Maryland Racing Commission and the Delaware Thoroughbred Racing Commission have each taken the position that some recent positive tests for glaucine have most likely been produced due to environmental contamination.

As an article by The Racing Biz explains, each of the commissions utilizes Truesdail Laboratories for their glaucine testing. A joint investigation between Truesdail and the Maryland commission was then conducted to further delve into the positives.

According to the article, the findings from the Truesdail/Maryland investigation came to the conclusion that the positives were more than likely produced due to environmental contamination.

The joint investigation found that when glaucine (which is a naturally-occurring alkaloid in the tulip poplar tree) is found along with one of three other alkaloids (protopine, asimilobine or liriodenine) the positive is more than likely due to environmental contamination. The article states that all of the positives in Maryland and Delaware contained glaucine and at least one of the aforementioned alkaloids.

The Delaware commission then used those findings to take the same position as Maryland in regard to the matter.

The article states that the source of the glaucine was the sawdust that several trainers had been using.

Tom Weinbrener of the Maryland Racing Commission said via conference call that “a lot of people were caught unaware through no fault of their own” and that “the bottom line is we want to do this the right way.”

It was announced earlier this month that a task force had been formed to review information on glaucine, and that Dr. Carolyn Cooper of the Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency had recently joined.

(With files from The Racing Biz)

Tags
Have something to say about this? Log in or create an account to post a comment.