Those of you following
the latest story [1] about the doping scandal engulfing horse racing in Britain
might be amused to know that “Sungate” is none other than Stanozolol – the drug
that Ben Johnson used to “win” his 100m Olympic gold in Seoul in 1988.
Manufacturers even supply nice glossy leaflets explaining that it is an
anabolic androgenic steroid derived from testosterone and boasting that it is
much the best at being anabolic (muscle building) rather than androgenic (sex
altering) [2]. So even if it was given on the advice of the vet. everyone must
have been aware that the horses were being treated with anabolic steroids. Such
“therapy” is wide open to abuse and it is therefore completely unacceptable and
banned at any time in nearly all sports. In racing the rules vary from country
to country. However, what the story seems to reveal is that, at best, there is a cavalier
attitude to sports doping in horse racing that is a million miles away from
elite Olympic sports. At worst, the industry is wide open to unscrupulous
trainers who might wish to exploit this slack attitude [3]. This is not a new
story by the way. There is a nice article in 2009 on the use of the same
steroid in US thoroughbred racing, focussing at least in part on horse welfare
issues [4].
I don’t think we have
heard the end of this story in Britain yet, not by a long way.
