The NHA Laboratory was recently notified by the Association of Official Racing Chemists (AORC) that it achieved a 100% result during the 2022 international racing laboratories proficiency test. During this annual test, blind plasma and urine specimens are supplied which could contain a variety of International Federation of Horseracing Authorities prescribed prohibited substances. The range of prohibited substances in horseracing is wide and inclusive of many potent substances and many metabolites.
The concentrations of the substances in the specimens the Laboratory had to detect and correctly confirm to the international requirement were found to be present at low part per billion (ppb) levels. In layman’s terms, 1 ppb is equivalent to 1 second in 32 years, or your 1st step when walking around the world more than 7 times.
It is noteworthy that for many prohibited substances which are in fact forbidden (such as anabolic entities, drugs and pro-drugs) our routinely applied NHA Laboratory sensitivity is in fact 1 000 times even more enhanced, to low part per trillion (ppt) detection and confirmation capability. 1 ppt equates to about one drop in a full-sized Olympic swimming pool.
We are also pleased to report that during the past 12 months we were informed of full (100%) compliance when a selection of our NHA racing negative specimens tested negative at all (of several) overseas racing laboratories which “tested” us at different times, inclusive of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Laboratory. - NHA