FEI issues guide on competition horse drugs

To make a clear distinction between the use of routine, legitimate medication and deliberate and calculated doping to affect a horse's performance, the FEI has published Guidelines to assist treating and team veterinarians. The objectives are to protect the welfare of the horse, defend the integrity of the sport and to reassure the public. The FEI believes that any horse requiring bona fide veterinary treatment should receive it, but recognises that the use of medication to treat illness and injury close to an event carries an inherent risk of incurring a positive drug test if insufficient time has elapsed for the elimination of the drug from the horse. The Medication Advisory group (MAG) has therefore joined with the European Horseracing Scientific Liaison Committee (EHSLC) to coordinate a series of drug administration studies to produce information for treating and team veterinarians. For FEI purposes, the drugs have been selected in collaboration with the International Treating Veterinarians Association and are collectively known as the FEI 'Medicine Box'. • 'Medicine Box' substances comprise the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs flunixin, phenylbutazone and ketoprofen; the intra-articular corticosteroids triamcinolone acetonide and methylprednisolone, and the intravenous corticosteroid dexamethasone sodium phosphate; sedatives detomidine, romifidine and xylazine; local anaesthetics lidocaine and mepivacaine (without epinephrine); respiratory system products clenbuterol; salbutamol (albuterol) and dembrexine; and the colic treatments butorphanol, scopolamine-N-butyl bromide (Buscopan) and metamizole (dipyrone). FEI List of Detection Times 04.07.06