“Doping Control for Horseracing” Seminar – MSc in Analytical Chemistry, HKBU

I attended the seminar entitled “Doping Control for Horseracing” organized by Department of Chemistry, Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) and then I was also invited to be the second speaker to introduce Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) and HKSQ certified quality professional to MSc students.


In the beginning, Dr. Kelvin Leung (Asst. Professor – Dept. of Chemistry, HKBU) gave an opening speech.

The first speaker was Dr. Emmie N.M. Ho (Racing Chemist, The Hong Kong Jockey Club) and her topic was “Doping Control for Horseracing”.

Dr. Ho introduced the racing laboratory department to us. There were 45 staff including 32 degree holders (PhD x7, MSc x9 and BSc x16), 6 Fellows and 4 Professional Members of the Association of Official Racing Chemists (AORC), 3 Fellows and 7 Members of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and 1 Fellow of the Forensic Science Society. Moreover, about HK$60M worth of major facilities were investigated, including 29 modern mass spectrometers that generated “chemical fingerprints” for drug identification.

The role of HKJC racing laboratory is to detect prohibited substances according to the relevant rules of racing or equestrian competitions (it tested over 18,000 official samples in 2008-2009). The laboratory was accredited according to ISO/IEC 17025 for testing equine, canine and human bodily fluids and reported no “false positives” in its 39 yrs history. It is a world leader in research on equine drug testing, producing over 40 papers within the past 7 years.

Then Dr. Ho briefed the objectives and rules of doping control, doping control analysis in the Racing Laboratory and common chemical techniques employed.

The objectives of doping control are to protect the integrity of the sport, the industry and the public. Prohibited substances (PS) for racehorses in Hong Kong were adopted from Article 6 of the International Agreement on Breeding, Racing and Wagering (Produced by the IFHA, International Federation of Horseracing Authorities).

The following countries were agreed the Article 6.

Specimens were included Urine, Blood and Saliva. The following is the window of detection of drug use in human data.

Blood collection containers (A barcodes would be assigned after collection)

Urine collected from horse

Urine containers after collection

Human urine sample vs Horse urine sample

What constitutes a “Positive” finding?
1. Non-threshold substances: Any level (concentration) of a Prohibited Substance found to be present in a sample.
2. Threshold substances: The level of a Prohibited Substance found in a sample must exceed the threshold set by the relevant rules.

Dr. Ho mentioned some common chemical techniques employed in doping control analyses. There were separated into three approaches as follows.
1. Screening (efficient and simple, wide drug coverage, sensitive)
2. Confirmation (qualitative, definitive, specific)
3. Quantification (where relevant; accurate, need to estimate uncertainty of measurement)

For sample extraction, one of common techniques was Liquid-Liquid Extraction (LLE) that partitioned sample between a hydrophilic aqueous phase and a hydrophobic organic phase.

Immunoassays such as Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay (ELISA) test was introduced for drug screening.

The screening of acidic drugs by using full scan GC/MS and screening of insulin by MRM LC/MS were also briefed.

Finally, Dr. Ho made the following conclusions:
· The ultimate aim of a doping control system is not to achieve high incidents of positive findings and sanctions, but rather
· Minimum violations, resulting from the deterrent of a highly-effective and well-respected medication control and drug testing program.

For more information:
MSc in AC: http://chem.hkbu.edu.hk/msc/
CLabQS: http://www.hksq.org/cert_hksq_clabqs.htm

QMforLab: http://www.hksq.org/nevents.htm