Unknowing liability, a previously unsuspected regulatory obligation leading to disciplinary action and/or financial consequences, is often seen by responsible persons across animal sports as unfair after an exposure to prohibited substances via feed, supplements and the environment. Regulators recognise that those who take all reasonable precautions deserve mitigation of penalties, but continue to stand by the wider interests of overall fairness in competition delivered by strict lability.
A detailed survey of equine and canine sports showed that the listed inventory of such exogenous prohibited substances had now grown to around 80 in several separate and independently derived lists. Current approaches to reduce risk from such liability include: Education on sourcing feed and supplements, on environmental and seasonal risks, and on managing facilities and staff; quality management schemes; and product testing harmonisation. The first and second are under-utilised, the latter often deficient for pre-analytical product preparation and sample extraction, even before variations in analytical methodology.
As well as improving education, quality management and testing harmonisation, further opportunities to reduce these risks include: Harmonisation and increased clarity on product labelling; Early warnings systems for wider findings of such prohibited substances; Regional and international Industry forums for producers and regulators; Exploiting Artificial intelligence from the vast amount of data being created by analytical laboratories, including for population pharmacokinetics. Such improvements would require cooperative working amongst and between regulators, laboratories, producers and participants.
Unknowing liability is a sub-optimally managed risk for responsible persons but also an reputational risk to regulators affecting social licence across animal sports. As well as developing inward looking preventative strategies, outward looking communication should better explain findings of prohibited substance in the context of the benefits of strict liability and the comparative stringency of analytical testing and would be mutually beneficial across the species and disciplines of animal sports.