The origin of doping test in sports goes back centuries to horse racing

Early this year, Korean Olympics swimming champion Park Tae-hwan created a stir after testing positive on doping. The origin of “doping” in sports goes back centuries to horse racing. The word first appeared in the U.K. in 1899 to mean a “combination of opium and several other drugs used in racing horses.” There are also references that wines or whiskeys were used in horses to boost their racing competence in the 19th century. The world’s first doping test was carried out in Austria in 1911 for sake of the health of racing horses and for a fare horse racing competition.

The war against doping has continued for long and this was also the case in Korean racetracks. At the Daesang Racing Competition hosted by the Dong-A Ilbo that ended Sunday, a mare named “Cheon-nyeon-dong-an” who won in two years tested for doping.

The Korea Racing Authority carries blood testing for all horses that race three hours ahead of their race. After the race ends, the horses that came in first, second and third go through second testing of a 100 ml urine sampling. Sometimes it’s really challenging to extract the samples from horses that are heavily breathing after the race. “Horses tend to urinate when we lead them to a dark place and whistle. We collect the sample this way. But sometimes it takes more than an hour to do this,” said Kang Shin-wook, manager in charge of doping at the authority.

Several years ago, flunixin, a banned drug, was detected from one horse, which had not taken the drug according to examination. It was found that the horse went to another horse stable and ate straw litter, which was stained with night soil of another horse that had received a drug treatment. The horse manager pleaded innocence but had to pay penalty for negligent management of the horse. Doping test check list contains 185 items including stimulants, tranquilizers, drugs, painkillers and anti-inflammatory. A separate drug test is also carried on horse feeds.