The New York Times is reporting this morning that Rick Dutrow, the trainer of Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown, will testify before the United States Congress next Thursday when a special House of Representatives Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection hearing on “Breeding, Drugs, and Breakdowns: The State of Thoroughbred Horseracing and the Welfare of the Thoroughbred Racehorse” will be held.
The Subcommittee is investigating the reasons for the deaths of so many racehorses recently, spurred by the double-breakdown of the filly Eight Belles who finished second in the Kentucky Derby and was euthanized on the track.
Others who will testify, according to the New York Times, are Richard Shapiro, the chairman of the California Horse Racing Board; Arthur Hancock III, the owner of Stone Farm outside Lexington, Ky.; Jess Jackson, the owner of Stonestreet Stables; Randy Moss, the ESPN analyst; Alan Marzelli, president of the Jockey Club; and the trainer Jack Van Berg.
Additional witnesses may include Susan Stover, the director of a veterinary research laboratory at the University of California at Davis; Larry Soma, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center; Dr. Mary Scollay, the Florida state veterinarian who has been hired as the equine medical director of the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority; Dr. Wayne McIlwraith of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Colorado State; and Alex Waldrop, the chief executive of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association.
Dutrow is likely to face questions about the use of steroids in racehorses. He recently admitted that Big Brown, like all his horses, was given monthly injections of a steroid called Winstrol. Dutrow reportedly said he didn’t know what the drug was or what it did. He told the Times that he might take his veterinarian to the hearing with him.
Let’s hope the hearings are on C-Span. Audio web-casting will be available if you have a Windows Media Player installed in your computer.
