

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.