“DOPING HORSES”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18676, 4 October 1922, Page 5

“DOPING HORSES”

(From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY. September 28. In view of the cabled reports from Paris concerning the dangerous growth of the practice of “doping” racehorses on French courses, interest attaches to the severe comment by a leading Victorian veterinary surgeon on the extent of the practice in Victoria. “ The doping of racehorses in an endeavour to make them gallon faster is extensively carried out on Melbourne courses” ho staled. “It is cruel and very dangerous to give stimulants to racehorses. The trouble is that the people who do this are inexperienced, and have little idea of the quantity of the drug to administer. A horse so treated becomes mad. and is a great danger in races. The treatment is cf no benefit to the horse, and undermines its constitution. One only has to see the distressed faces of some of the horses after a race to know that they have been ttoped tip to the eyebrows.” Tim surgeon points out that arsenic can he discovered in the saliva of horses 35 hours after administration. He advocates taking tests from horses in order to put a slop to the use of drugs. -He considers it time that the racing authorities conducted a campaign against doping, and this could easily be carried out by taking swabs from horses after a race and having them analysed. This is the French system of (Meeting doping, and is said to have been very successful.