Controlled Medication

In January, Josch Löhden (34) celebrated the most important success of his career in the jumping saddle to date by winning the Golden Drum in Basel. At the beginning of February, he was informed that the doping test taken in Basel on his horse EIC Schabernack had turned out positive.

The substance triamcinolone acetonide, a cortisone preparation from human medicine that falls under the category of “controlled medication”, was detected in the ten-year-old Hanoverian gelding. This includes substances that may in principle be used in horses, but not in competition.

Triamcinolone is a depot cortisone that is preferably used for joint injections, less frequently for intramuscular treatments. The preparation was on everyone’s lips 21 years ago because Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum’s Shutterfly was tested on it during the 2005 European Championships in Mannheim.

Fast Track procedure

According to the FEI, the elimination period for the medication is seven days. Josch Löhden waited eleven days before traveling to the show in Basel between Christmas and New Year after the treatment. With four days more than the stated elimination time, he thought he was on the safe side. The shock was all the greater when the news of the positive test came.

As Löhden had not yet been found guilty of a medication violation, he was free to opt for the FEI’s Fast Track procedure. This is only possible in cases of “controlled medication” and only for the first offense. The person responsible, which is usually the rider, accepts the disqualification of their results and therefore their world ranking points, pays a fine and returns their prize money. There is no ban. If the rider is found guilty again within the next four years, the case goes directly to the FEI Court of Arbitration.

Löhden would have already had the option of appealing to the arbitration tribunal and requesting that the B sample be opened, but he says: “I didn’t see the point. I knew that the horse had been treated. The victory is gone and that was THE victory. But it can’t be changed now.” He went on to emphasize: “It was purely a care measure and had nothing whatsoever to do with improving performance.”

By accepting the fast track procedure with all its consequences, Löhden was not banned.

Different waiting times

Of the five cases that have currently been decided in the fast track procedure in the past four weeks, triamcinolone was the substance found in three of them. Löhden says that he subsequently heard from several colleagues that the elimination period specified by the FEI was too short. In fact, the FN specifies a withdrawal period of 56 days for the drug.

Why is this the case? The FEI specifies the elimination time. To find this out, a limited number of horses were administered the drug to be tested in a therapeutically effective dose and then tested to see how long it took for the substance to become undetectable. However, these figures are only indicative and do not represent the entire horse population, as each metabolism is individual. The FEI also explicitly points this out.

The FN, on the other hand, takes the elimination time and the individual properties of the medication to be administered as a starting point and adds an individual safety margin to arrive at the recommended withdrawal time and thus give the rider the greatest possible safety.