The Australian Endurance Riders Association Inc (AERA) is committed to a “clean sport” and has established a target of 2% of endurance entry numbers to be swabbed during any year. For 2021 this was determined to be 2% of entry numbers from 2019, so 85 horses to be swabbed.
Again, we have seen a year of interruptions to ride calendars to some degree in all states but still managed to achieve a total of 64 swabs with all of these returning a negative result. The paperwork provided to the Person/s Responsible includes the sample number that can be checked on the EA website.
AERA has continued to work with Equestrian Australia (EA) to ensure that opportunities are available to train and accredit an adequate number of Medication Control Stewards.
AERA urges all trainers, owners and riders to be aware of what is being given to horses under their care. All Persons Responsible for a horse will be penalised if that horse returns a positive result from a blood or urine sample. Information about prohibited substances is provided by FEI and is available at https://inside.fei.org/fei/cleansport/ad-h/prohibited-list.
Marylou Locke, who has been the Equine Anti-Doping and Medication Control (EADCM) Coordinator for AERA since 2020, will continue in this role in 2022. AERA would like to take this opportunity to publicly acknowledge the contribution that Marylou gives to the sport.