Drug Tests on Horses at Bay Meadows Are Negative; Lab May Be Censured

Two suspicious post-race urine samples under investigation by California Horse Racing Board chemists have turned up negative, the executive director of the board has said.

Len Foote identified the samples as having been taken from horses at Bay Meadows. It earlier was believed that they came from Santa Anita horses.

Tony Chamblin, director of the National Assn. of Racing Commissioners, said that Foote, on behalf of the California board, has asked the commissioners to censure a horse-testing laboratory in St. Joseph, Mich.

Foote is complaining that the lab, International Diagnostics, agreed to specially test 83 samples from California horses, then wouldn’t give the California racing board details of what it found. The lab said that it had flagged 10% to 15% of the samples for possible illegal drugs, but when the California lab later tested the same samples, it found no positives.