Racing Officials Debate Validity of Drug-Testing Case

To Jack Brooks, one of the country’s most successful and respected quarter horse trainers, just having his name associated with cocaine has damaged his reputation.

Brooks is on probation for a year because his 3-year-old filly, Golden Form, failed a drug test. Tests conducted at a Maryland lab after Golden Form won a race at Sunland Park on Feb. 11, 2000, found in her urine less than 10 nanograms of benzoylecgonine, a derivative of cocaine.

New Mexico’s zero-tolerance policy for banned drugs in racehorses does not discriminate between 10 nanograms per billion, considered a minuscule amount for a 1,500-pound horse, or 150 nanograms, the amount needed to confirm a cocaine positive test in humans.

A nanogram is one-billionth part of a gram.

“I’m innocent as can be and it really hurts to hear ‘Jack Brooks and cocaine,’ ” said Brooks, who has saddled nearly 9,000 winners in 42 years of training. “In my business, you really do care what people think.”

Brooks has won the All American Futurity, the world’s richest quarter horse race, eight times and last year had the world champion 2-year-old colt, Eyesa Special.

The yearlong probation that ends Feb. 27, 2002, is, in effect, a warning. It allows Brooks to continue racing horses, and he remains much in demand among horse owners.

But despite the bad publicity in the Brooks case, the sport seems to have emerged cleaner.

In New Mexico drug tests, horses are held to a higher standard than humans. It takes a minimum of 300 nanograms per billion in screening tests on humans to confirm a positive result and 150 parts per billion in confirmation tests.

State Racing Commissioner Susan Vescovo, who cast the only dissenting vote in the commission’s decision to place Brooks on probation, says New Mexico should have a cutoff level for benzoylecgonine in horses.

“I think you can be zero tolerance and have a cutoff level,” she said.

Cutoff levels for benzoylecgonine are in place in Canada, where it is 50 nanograms, and Ohio (150).

Vescovo calls the Golden Form test the case of a pinhead on a football field. In the eyes of veterinarian Bob Storey, it is a grain of sand in the ocean.

“My vote was based on the degree that we are testing to,” Vescovo said. “A horse weighs 1,500 pounds and we’re going to end up calling a 10 [nanograms] a positive?”

Storey, a private veterinarian who cares for horses at Sunland Park and Ruidoso Downs, said, “At the level we’re talking about, it’s minuscule and has no effect on a horse’s performance.”

Greg Drake, chairman of the New Mexico Racing Commission, said the zero-tolerance policy is not likely to change.

“It’s to protect the betting public,” he said. “I don’t think there’s been enough tests run or evidence that shows how it affects a horse. We’d open up a huge can of worms.”

Commissioner Harley “Beaver” Segotta said, “I’m a horse owner and I’m for zero, period.”

Also at issue is the status of cocaine as a major environmental contaminant.

A study released in July 2000 by Dr. Thomas Tobin, a professor of veterinary science at the University of Kentucky, noted that paper money is often contaminated with cocaine. In one experiment using 136 dollar bills, 79% of the bills yielded readily detectable cocaine, the study found.

In terms of an environmental contaminant, the data showed that exposure of a horse to the amount of cocaine often found on a dollar bill in general circulation can trigger a positive test for benzoylecgonine.

Tobin’s report also said an amount of 50 nanograms or less of benzoylecgonine would not affect the performance of a racehorse.

“The further down you go, the easier it is to find a trace and the less it means,” Tobin said.

The New Mexico Racing Commission earlier this year had one of its investigators count large amounts of money for nearly half an hour and then handle two horses much like a trainer would--placing his hands inside the mouths and noses of horses.

Cotton balls that were used to swab the investigator’s hands contained a significant level of cocaine, but the two horses tested negative.

“While currency may be a source of cocaine as an environmental contaminant, it probably is not the source of positive cocaine tests in racehorses,” the commission said in a report on the experiment.

The hearing officer in Brooks’ case said the source of cocaine found in Golden Form could not be determined, “but could have come from incidental contact with . . . a person who uses cocaine. A groom, who was not employed by Brooks but who would have had access to the filly and the horse’s feed before the race, tested positive for cocaine and morphine several days after the race.

The 65-year-old Brooks, of Jones, Okla., was not at Sunland Park when the horse was stabled there and did not have contact with the horse for two weeks before the race. The filly had also been placed in a private barn owned by another trainer because there were no available stalls at the track.

Hearing officer J. Duke Thornton said that because of the “significant mitigating circumstances,” he recommended that Brooks not be suspended or placed on probation. But the commission voted for probation, saying trainers ultimately are responsible for their horses.

“I don’t feel Jack had anything to do with the horse getting cocaine, but ultimately he’s responsible,” Segotta said. “He was probably as surprised as anyone.”

Vescovo said horse racing has been hurt by the bad publicity about benzoylecgonine traces.

“The problem I have with these low levels is Joe Blow reads this” and thinks racehorses are being given performance-enhancing drugs,” Vescovo said. “This is not happening. I think racing is cleaner now than it has ever been. They read Jack Brooks, cocaine positive. It compromises the integrity of the sport.”

Drake, however, believes that the Brooks case has had a positive effect. He points out that there have been no positive tests for cocaine since then.

“The [Brooks] probation might have opened some eyes on the backside,” Drake said. “It’s a shame that it had to come to that. If it hadn’t been such a big name, it wouldn’t have gotten as much press as it has.”