Dr. Scott Stanley, who directed the modernization of drug testing in California horse racing in this century, has accepted a position at the University of Kentucky.
Dr. Stanley will continue until early next year at the Kenneth L. Maddy Equine Analytical Chemistry Laboratory at the University of California in Davis.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for Dr. Stanley,” said CHRB Chairman Chuck Winner. “We will miss him and the wonderful work that he has done for California racing.”
Dr. Rick Arthur, the CHRB's equine medical director, said the Maddy Laboratory will continue to run smoothly despite the loss of someone as important to its operation as Dr. Stanley.
“Once Dr. Stanley departs, Dr. Ben Moeller will be running the Maddy Lab, as he did when Dr. Stanley was on sabbatical. That went well without a hitch,” Dr. Arthur explained. “Dr. Moeller did his PhD under Dr. Stanley and was brought on as a second chemist at Maddy in 2016. We also have Dr. Heather Knych at Maddy, the drug testing program’s veterinary pharmacologist. Dr. Knych is a DVM with a PhD in pharmacology/toxicology and is board certified in veterinary clinical pharmacology. Dr. Knych has been the lead investigator on numerous research studies at Maddy in collaboration with Dr. Stanley and others at the lab.
“Dr. Stanley is a professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine at U.C. Davis with teaching responsibilities along with managing the Maddy Lab. As this is a faculty position, it will be up to the dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine, U.C. Davis, to fill the position.”
Dr. Stanley will be setting up a new laboratory at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. He is from Kentucky – he has family in Lexington – and he did his PhD at the University of Kentucky.
“Dr. Stanley will be hard to replace," said Dr. Arthur, who worked closely with Dr. Stanley for many years, even before Dr. Stanley moved to U.C. Davis and before Dr. Arthur became EMD in 2006. “He is one of the few racing chemists who understands horse racing outside their lab. He is a hard-to-beat expert witness and represents the CHRB’s drug testing program well both in public and in the equine drug testing profession worldwide.”
CHRB Executive Director Rick Baedeker and Dr. Arthur will be closely following the replacement process, as the Maddy Laboratory processes all equine drug testing in California horse racing and is the backbone of the integrity program. The Maddy Laboratory analyzed 54,830 samples during the last fiscal year on a budget of $3,187,250.
Dr. Stanley directed the transition of equine drug testing in California from Truesdail Laboratories, where he had served as assistant director, to the newly created Maddy Laboratory in the early 2000s. This transition included replacing older testing methodologies with new, state-of-the-art instrumental drug testing equipment and procedures.
As director of the Maddy Laboratory, Dr. Stanley introduced instrumental screening and worked closely with manufacturers in adapting newer, more sensitive, instruments to equine drug testing. Under Dr. Stanley, the Maddy Laboratory became one of the first racing laboratories accredited to international ISO17025 standards in the United States and was one of the first laboratories accredited by the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium. The Maddy Laboratory is the only laboratory in the Western Hemisphere certified by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities. While at the Maddy Laboratory, Dr. Stanley has authored or co-authored 126 peer-reviewed publications, three book chapters and 105 scientific abstracts, including research on anabolic steroids, beta-2 agonists, and many studies on therapeutic drug thresholds for racing.
(CHRB)