New Horse Drug Rumored at Santa Anita : Buprenorphine Has Resulted in Suspension of 17 New Mexico Trainers

The use of a relatively new drug, described as being 30 times more powerful than morphine, has resulted in the suspension of 17 horse trainers in New Mexico and is believed to be available at Santa Anita, according to California racing authorities and local trainers.

The California Horse Racing Board has sent 90 random urine samples from horses at Santa Anita to the Illinois state testing laboratory for analysis. The Illinois lab is the only facility in the United States with the capability to test for the prescription drug, known by its trade name as Buprenex and generically as buprenorphine.

Len Foote, executive director of the California racing board, said that the Illinois lab has not yet found any samples containing buprenorphine, adding that all of the tests haven’t been completed.

The California board is reacting to rumors at Santa Anita that have been prevalent for weeks. “A race track is always good for a million rumors,” said one veteran trainer, who asked not to be named. “But these are the strongest rumors I’ve ever heard.”

Three trainers told The Times that at least six trainers--most of them well known to the public--were suspected of using the illegal drug.

Bruce Jackson, who has a string of horses at Santa Anita, is under suspension in New Mexico because one of his horses tested positive, and there is a hearing pending before that state’s racing commission. Jackson could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Two New Mexico trainers were banned for life after their horses were found to have raced on Nubain, a synthetic narcotic. Five trainers found using buprenorphine were given five-year suspensions. The remaining 10, including Jackson, were suspended pending a hearing.

“We don’t like running against trainers who are using this drug,” said Arno Virant, who works as an assistant to trainer Tony Delia. “I’ve been around horses for less than 10 years, and I’ve always thought that you got a horse ready for a race through proper feed and care, not by drugging him. It’s tough enough to win races without having to go up against this.”

Used as a painkiller by humans, buprenorphine is a stimulant when given to horses.

“This drug is supposed to bring a sore horse back to life,” Foote said. “We’re looking at that type of horse when he runs, and these are the ones that we’ll continue to test.”

Paul Berube, president of the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau, a private security group that services about 50 tracks, including Santa Anita, said that the first positive postrace test for buprenorphine turned up at Louisiana Downs in November of 1986. Since then, the drug has turned up in the systems of quarter horses in Florida and Oklahoma. The positives in New Mexico have been from both quarter horses and thoroughbreds.

“It’s unsavory that veterinarians and horsemen would use this drug,” says Ken Newton, president of Albuquerque Downs. “I think that it’s happened to this extent because there are not a lot of good trainers, and they try to use medication instead of accepted training methods. What they’re going to do is kill the sport.”

The New Mexico commission uncovered the violators at considerable expense. Harris Hartz, the commission chairman, said that each sample sent to Illinois costs about $230.

“Our budget last year was about $900,000 and we ran out of money, spending about $300,000 on just testing,” Hartz said. “But this year we’re going to try to get more money by going to the legislature. This is the most important thing we can do.”

Foote said that the California racing board has ordered testing kits for buprenorphine.

“The kits haven’t been available,” Foote said. “Testing for this drug is still experimental, and Illinois is working with test kits.”

Racing investigators at Santa Anita have also tried through surveillance to catch trainers drugging their horses, although this is a difficult method and sometimes difficult to prove if a trainer takes a case to court.

It takes less than half a drop of buprenorphine to affect a horse. The dosage will last from 15 minutes to 6 hours, but supposedly has its peak effect an hour after it is given, so the best time to inject a horse would be about an hour before a race, before a horse must be sent to the state-supervised receiving barn.

“With all the rumors, I would think that if any trainers were using the stuff here, they wouldn’t be foolish enough to continue using it,” said Randy Mitton, the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau’s agent at Santa Anita.

Another prominent trainer disagrees with that theory, suggesting that the Truesdail Laboratory in Irvine, which handles California’s horse testing, operates under a double standard.

“The lab is capable of covering up things, if they find it expedient to do it,” the trainer, who also asked not to be named, said. “When was the last time a horse trained by Charlie Whittingham had a positive? He’s too important of a trainer, and they don’t want to fool with him.

“If some of the guys using this drug are the names I’ve heard, they probably think they’re important enough to get away with it as long as they want to.”

Whittingham, a member of racing’s Hall of Fame, had the first positive of his long career a couple of years ago. He apparently is not one of the trainers under suspicion at Santa Anita and was not one of the conditioners mentioned by the three trainers who talked with The Times.

Many of the horses that ran in New Mexico under buprenorphine did well. In a 25-day period starting last Aug. 19, nine horses tested positive at San Juan Downs and Ruidoso Downs. Five of them were winners, two finished second and two ran third.

“There are so many esoteric drugs that pop up, it’s almost impossible to keep up with them,” Berube said. “If you tried to subject every sample to every test for every known drug, it would take a lab a week just to process one sample.”

Foote said that there are 70,000 frozen postrace samples in a railroad boxcar in Irvine. They represent all breeds that have run in the state during a 12-month period and are kept in case there is reason to re-test them.

Right now, a search is going on for samples from horses that Bruce Jackson ran here last year.

“We’re having trouble finding any,” Foote said. “He didn’t run that many horses.”