THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN - BREAKING NEW GROUND. A GOOD TIME TIME TO LOOK AND LEARN.

By Graham Potter | Sunday, May 29, 2016

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the paper these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily.

It is a commonly held belief, rightly or wrongly, that those participants intent on gaining an edge in the doping department in racing are often one step ahead of the ruling authority ... at least for a period of time.

The establishment machinery then grinds on slowly, but relentlessly, and catches up, only for those who want to stretch the limits of legality to take another step across the line and then the whole sequence is repeated again.

The crime and the chase seemingly inexorably locked in a never ending struggle.

Well, the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s recent report regarding a proposed new method of doping control should give people on both sides of that fence plenty of food for thought.

It might offer some comfort. It might offer some stress. It all depends where you sit in the grand scheme of things.

It has to do with something called ‘biomarkers.’

As explained in the report, ‘A biomarker (or biological marker) is an indicator of a physiological state resulting from biological or pathological processes, some of which are in response to an external pharmacological (drug) or non-chemical intervention.’

That leads directly to this intriguing key factor in the proposed new method of doping control ... biomarkers monitoring focuses on the biological effects of drugs instead of testing for the residual presence of specific substances.

This is no small matter as evidenced by the following:

Club researchers believe that this new method has the potential to, ‘identify indirectly, and collectively, the misuse of numerous undetectable or difficult-to-detect substances

... to improve the detection windows for fast-eliminating but long-acting substances

... to perform monitoring of biomarkers profiles of racehorses to identify any changes due to the effects of drugs or other forms of doping, the so-called biological passports

... to identify the administration of naturally-occurring (endogenous) prohibited substances

... and to differentiate between the surreptitious treatment with a banned substance by a certain route of exposure and the inadvertent exposure to the same substance by another route.’

“Biomarkers monitoring is a revolutionary detection approach and has the potential to fill the gap where conventional drug testing either fails, or encounters significant challenges,” said Dr Terence Wan, who heads the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s Racing Laboratory.

Dr Wan believes this proposal to be an important alternative approach for the future and that it reflects significant and necessary progress towards a new way of equine doping control in order to cope with the rapid drug development which is challenging the conventional “chemical testing” approach to doping control.

“More work is needed to validate this biomarkers method but this has been an incredibly positive step towards changing the dynamics of equine doping control,” said Dr. Wan.

And I’ll give the last word to Andrew Harding, Executive Director, Racing Authority of the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

“Racing integrity is a key element to the success of racing in Hong Kong and the Club’s relentless effort in maintaining a high standard of racing control has been endorsed by international racing jurisdictions and is undoubtedly trusted by customers.”

As stated elsewhere in the report, ’the Racing Laboratory’s ground-breaking work is a keystone in maintaining that trust.’

Few racing jurisdictions are in a position to emulate the Hong Kong model ... but all would do well to look and learn!