It was a bad day in PA Thoroughbred racing last year when our three major races were stripped of their Graded Stakes status including the Pennsylvania Derby. Earlier this week we got word that the 2009 races were reinstated as Graded Stakes based on the PA Racing Commission's decision at their March meeting to start testing for alkalizing agents "milkshakes". With PA taking one of the earliest and strongest stands against steroids, I wanted to find out more on why PA was so late to the game on this issue.
In speaking with one of the PA Commissioners, it turns out that years ago it was decided not to test for Thoroughbreds based on testimony that milkshakes do not make a difference or really work. Another Commissioner has felt that testing will not stand up if it ever went to court. The strange point though is that testing was and has been consistently conducted for harness horses in the State of PA. Years went by with changes in Commissioners....and until the recent incident regarding the Graded Stakes, at least some on the PA Commission were not aware of this inconsistency.
In my research to better understand milkshaking, I came across the below article written by "The Player" which is pretty concerning in how accomplished trainers have gotten in this practice. There is now a third or fourth generation of "milkshake" and they are administered over the 4 days before the race. Even worse it can now be easily injected by syringe and purchased in Canada with a cloaking agent making it hard to detect. What is even scarier is the rationalization that there is nothing wrong with this practice, as much worst kinds of drugging such as EPO, Prialt and many other unnamed drugs are being routinely administered. While I often hear these type of accusations and find it suspicious when there are big jumps in Beyer figures after certain trainers take over a horse (Andy Beyer himself brings this up quite often), the level of detail this writer provides including the recipe for milkshaking seems to add to the credibility of what is written.
The hope here is that Pennsylvania moves quickly to put this decision to test into action and models off of what Delaware did in 2006 by testing
races. They do this by using the Metabolic Alkalosis/Blood Gas Testing instruments which measure Base Excess and total Carbon Dioxide levels in the blood. Rumors are rampant on the backstretch of Philadelphia Park and Penn National of trainers gaining an edge by milkshaking and we need to create a level playing field for owners and trainers that want to play by the rules (not to mention bettors that want a fair shot).
Milkshaking
Understanding the role that “change” plays in racing performance.
By: The Player
Milkshaking is a term that refers to tubing a large quantity of sodium bicarbinate, that is, baking soda, and sugars down a horses throat prior to racing.
Standardbred trainers began the practice in the late 1970's. Quarterhorse trainers were a couple years behind and thoroughbred trainers, as always, were the slowest to adopt the practice. In fact, most thoroughbred trainers, didn't actually try to milkshake horses until it became illegal to do so in thoroughbred circles. Thoroughbred trainers have always been slow to change and normally only do so in response to the thought pattern that I characterize in a motto, "if its wrong; it must be right."
To be fair, the lack of forward thinking in thoroughbred training circles isn't always the trainer's fault; they are guided by the most misguided group of professionals I have ever encountered, race track vets. Talk about a case of the blind being led by the blind!
Actually, while Milkshaking has been illegal in harness circles for what seems like forever, it has only been recently banned in thoroughbred racing. I recall milkshaking horses back in the old Keystone Racetrack (now Philadelphia Park) in the early and mid eighties. Even more importantly. I remember talking with vets about the practice and having them laugh at me like I was some kind of fool.
Well my mama didn't raise no fool and after our horses rolled off 19 wins in 22 races, the vets as well as other trainers and racing officials, quite independently, busied themselves digging through my trash, tearing up our shed row and searching through our tack room to find the "drug" that we used to accomplish that feat. All the while, while they snuck around trying to catch us, we continued to tube the horses right out in the open. Back then, we didn't have a catchy name like Milkshake, we just called it a "Jug." Calling it a "jug" served to hide it right out in the open as "jugs" were mixtures of amino acids that were tubed into a horse to fortify their blood and help build muscle.
Today, like everything in science, Mikshaking has become part science, part art. While it is most vigorously banned everywhere, and suspensions up to 6 months have been handed out for "positves," Milkshaking is still in widespread use by a group of very successful horseman.
First, we need to look at the evolution of the Milkshake. Early on, it was just a cup of baking soda dissolved in water and tubed down a horse's throat prior to racing.
The second generation of milkshakes were conceived by harness circles, of course, and were based on performance based studies carried by exercise physiologists on Olympic athletes. The second generation Milkshake was a combination of sugar and baking soda.
A few years passed and Mikshakes found themselves in the third generation. Again based on research with human athletes, this time professional cyclists, Milkshakes became a combination of sugar and a few different blood buffering compounds, including baking soda and other phoshates, bicarbonates and citrates.
In fact, that milkshake was the very product that I introduced to Twin Labs for human which they made and marketed under the name Phos Fuel. Later variations changed the sugar from sucrose to glucose and finally to more complex chain sugars but the "milkshake" remained a "milkshake," different in form but not in function or in result.
Let's fast forward to today and examine the current practice of "milkshaking." The whole point to milkshaking from the start was "buffer" the blood. What that means is that we were trying to raise the pH, eliminating debilitiating fatigue causing acids from the blood. Most fatigue is caused by acidic blood. Experiment on yourself. Every morning mix a half teaspoon of baking soda into a glass of water and drink it. You won't feel quite so tired as the day wears on. If you are a runner or in the gym, the effect will be very noticable. This isn't rocket science, just plain logic and known cause-effect physiology.
Recently, in thoroughbred circles, when the trainers and vets, the group I refer to as "the gang that couldn't shoot straight," sized on "milkshaking," of course, they broke it down to the least common denominator and started tubing horses again with baking soda and Kool-aid. Yes Kool-aid! Now, before you think I am being unfair to them, there was a high tech splinter group that used baking soda and Gator Ade. There are always an enlightened few among the dirty, unwwashed masses. baking Soda and Gator Ade, now why didn't I think of that!
The result of this happy go lucky round of kitchen and backyard milkshaking was a bunch of positives and a sudden thrust among racing officials to stamp out this terrible practice of giving some horses unfair edges over others.
Please! I will be happy to run against a backyard milkshaked horse any day of the week. Edge, my arse. But I guess every brain challenged group, including racing officials, need something to do to justify their high paying jobs, so let the cat and mouse game play on! It's kind of entertaining to watch, anyway.
Let's look at "modern" science and where the true milkshake is today. First of all, in the highly successful barns it isn't delivered by a tube any longer. It is delivered by a simple oral syringe. And it isn't done just before races, it is done over a four day period leading to the race. If you want to make a milkshake for Black Beauty running around in your yard, it's really simple to do. Make two ounces of paste using corn oil and the following:
3 parts sodium citrate
2 parts sodium bicarbonate
2 parts calcium carbonate
1 part potassium citrate
Get an empty worming syringe and administer this paste to the horse for four days. Then smack his ass and I bet that he will run across your yard faster than ever.
If you don't want to go to the trouble yourself, there is a product that is made in Canada and "snuck" across the border for sale to US horseman. Some of the product is in paste form but most often it has been made into a powder for use by that old tube because, yes, you guessed it, old thouroughbred habits die hard.
The Canadian product or the one we could make here might employ a simple cloaking ingredient that would make it very hard to detect should racing official specifically scrutinize said equine.
Is this drugging? Even asking that question seems to me crazy. That would be like saying that feeding high performance foods are drugging, or feeding better hay is drugging, or giving electrolytes is drugging or using ice is drugging.
Helping a horse's muscle adapt to exercise loads with the use of totally natural nutritional substances is not drugging. EPO is drugging. Prialt is drugging. I can rattle off a list of dozens of substances being used by leading trainers everywhere, and the racing officals are focused on milkshaking! Good Golly Gosh, Gomer! I think I saw me an auto-mobile. In other words, guys, get into this century and chase the real cheats.
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