HP - I do hear what you are saying, and I respect your concern about this.
But let\'s look at what makes a drug \"of abuse\": you have to be able to get it, use it (appropriately), most importantly it has to be effective for your desired purpose of enabling or improving a horses\' ability to run, and you have to not get caught.
So please add some more info to your reference base of information about procaine:
1) As soon as you can find a bottle of sterile, injectable plain procaine available for purchase, even from a compounding pharmacy, or from some Mexian guy via the internet (likely, but I won\'t guarantee the bottle\'s contents) give me a call.
I just flipped through three drug catalogs, one from an equine compounding pharmacy, here on my desk, and bottles of procaine are not listed. Carbocaine and lidocaine, that\'s it.
2) You will have a hard time finding the above, because there are now far better drugs for inducing local anesthesia. It\'s not readily available.
Procaine is now used used primarily in intramuscular injections as an ultra-short acting adjunct so the shot doesn\'t hurt (procaine penicillin)
3) Everyone knows procaine is so easily, and readily tested for, whoever would use it and expect it not to be found would be a clumsy, \"beginner\" fool.
However, I will grant you that criminals are usually not known for their stellar intelligence
But a horse who had a level high enough in their system to induce anesthesia of a painful area of the body would have had a sky high level found in testing.
That is why people went to trying things like cobra venom years and years ago.
4) Procaines\' effectiveness as a local anesthetic is for such a short period of time, let me know how they injected the horse prior to the race while the horse was under holding barn scrutiny.
5) Procaine is a Class 3 (the least consequential) violation because it\'s potential for misuse in horse racing is LITTLE TO NONE.
By the way, the withdrawal for procaine in NY is 7 days. In CA it is 15.
Pletcher says it was given 18 days out for a respiratory infection. If that was given as an intramuscular injection of procaine penicillin it makes total sense.
Not infrequently IM injections get walled off, are not absorbed as they should be, etc. Can\'t tell you how many times I\'ve found depots of IM drugs sitting there, unabsorbed, on necropsy.
Seriously - if I am going to worry about drug abuse, I\'m gonna worry about drugs of abuse. And those with repeated, constant violations.
Not an antibiotic either not metabolized, given too close to the race, or given to the wrong horse.
Yes, Pletcher should be given and take his time. That\'s the rule, everyone plays by it.
