When the local racing board changed their drug testing policies, Adam Negrusz and his
colleagues from the University of Illinois at Chicago had the unenviable task of checking for cocaine
in almost twenty thousand horse urine samples.
In theory, coke could make a thoroughbred less prone to fatigue, which would allow it to run faster in
the last stretch. To prevent horse racing from becoming a drugfest like the the Tour de France,
overseers collect urine samples from the winners, perform rigorous drug tests, and issue fines when
they catch a cheater.
After several horses unexpectedly tested positive for tiny amounts of benzoylecgonine, a byproduct of
cocaine, researchers found that animals can unintentionally come into contact with
the widespread narcotic. To be fair, officials decided to tweak the rules a bit.
If a horse is caught with a low levels of the cocaine byproduct, the owners will pay a small fine. For
higher amounts (150 ng/mL if you are curious), the penalty can be significantly stiffer. Since the new
policy requires a precise numerical measurement, and standard test kits only give a yes or no
answer, someone would need to develop an entirely new method for screening large amounts of
equine fluid.
This is where Negrusz came to the rescue. He and his team tested a laboratory
procedure for measuring the amount of benzoylecgonine in horse urine. Over the course
of three weeks, they used a Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometer to check
19,315 tubes of the unpleasant bodily fluid. Those samples were gathered from four race tracks in the Chicago area over the course of two years. Only 28 of them contained even slight amounts of the drug
byproduct, none exceeded the threshold.
Corresponding with the journal Forensic Science International, Negrusz and his group published a full report of their work. It is already available online and will be printed in a wee bit.
