The FEI has imposed an administrative sanction following a positive equine blood test result for a controlled medication at Horse of the Year 2018. The horse Ardmore tested positive to Meloxicam following a win in the CDI-Y Team Test for Dressage. A fine has been imposed by the FEI. The prizemoney, trophies and grading points from all affected CDIY classes at HOY will be reallocated by ESNZ. ESNZ is satisfied that the matter has been dealt with by the FEI and will be taking no further action.”
The owners of Ardmore have issued the following statement:
We administered a dose of meloxicam orally to Ardmore over five days prior to the competition at which the horse was tested. We were acting under advice of our veterinarian. In the published “FEI List of Detection Times”, meloxicam is listed as a time of 72 hours or three days. The advice from our veterinarian was to allow an additional 24 hours to give a withhold period of four days. We are of the understanding that this four day withhold period for meloxicam is in common use for horses competing under FEI rules around the world. Clearly therefore it is an unfortunate and totally unintentional anomaly that this drug remained in the horses system at the time of competition. One possible explanation is that this horse is recognised to have an unusual condition that predisposes to gastric impaction (a delay in feed contents leaving the stomach). Presumably this may have contributed to the anomaly.