🔒 🔒 What is Darbepoetin alfa, the long-acting EPO behind a handful of racing cases?

The drug Racing Victoria stewards allege was in the glove box of Nick Ryan’s car on Saturday morning is a human anaemia medication, with positive tests in Australian thoroughbred racing very rare.

The Flemington trainer was charged with possessing two syringes of darbepoetin alfa under AR 250(a) after an inspection of his stable. Ryan reserved his plea and the inquiry was adjourned until Monday. Stewards withdrew Anglais from the Wakeful Stakes and Doubt Time from the Coolmore Stud Stakes while the charge awaits determination.

The Straight makes no judgment on these open matters, and this article examines this history of the drug’s use in Australia, and won’t comment on the circumstances of the current situation. It is important to note that possession of a banned substance does differ from presentation and administration.

Darbepoetin is abbreviated to DPO in racing cases and sold for human use as Aranesp. It is a genetically engineered, long-acting erythropoiesis-stimulating agent that drives red blood cell production through the same receptors as erythropoietin (EPO).

The molecule carries five N-linked carbohydrate chains, two more than EPO, which gives it roughly three times the half-life.

In Australia it is a Schedule 4 prescription medicine indicated for anaemia linked to chronic renal failure and chemotherapy. In a racehorse, the appeal is greater red cell production and oxygen-carrying capacity.

The Australian Rules of Racing name darbepoetin alfa in Prohibited List A, among substances banned at all times, alongside EPO, epoetin alfa, epoetin beta and Mircera. AR 250 makes possession of a List A substance an offence in its own right.

Detection is covered separately under AR 242, and administration under AR 243 and AR 244.

Australia’s first thoroughbred EPO case involved Victorian trainer Richard Laming. Out-of-competition blood samples from Benelli and War Dancer on June 11, 2009, and from Benelli again on July 2, all returned darbepoetin.

On November 11, 2010, Laming was disqualified for three years after pleading guilty to seven charges, three of them arising from the detections. Three charges alleging he administered the drug were dropped.

“The board is mindful these are not administration cases, but nevertheless it is a case of considerable significance,” said Judge Russell Lewis, then chairman of the Racing Appeals and Disciplinary Board.

Laming’s application for review of the penalty was unsuccessful, with the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal confirming the three-year disqualification. In his reasons, VCAT senior member John Nixon stressed the importance of deterrence.

“These offences are difficult to detect and so far as general deterrence is concerned the message should be heard loudly and clearly by all licensed trainers that they are under a duty to take all proper precautions to prevent the administration of such prohibited substances to horses,” Nixon said.

Two years later, then RV chief steward Terry Bailey said Laming remained the only case in three years of testing thousands of horses annually.

“If there was any doubt we could detect EPO, that case made it perfectly clear we could and it (the penalty) has had the desired effect,” Bailey said.

More recently, South Australian trainer Darryl Carrison pleaded guilty under AR 242(a) after an out-of-competition blood sample taken from Rubikton on January 16, 2025, returned recombinant human EPO.

The official finding identified EPO, not darbepoetin alfa, and the offence concerned detection rather than administration. Stewards imposed a four-year disqualification, which the South Australian Racing Appeals Tribunal reduced to three years.

Western Australian participant Clinton Hall received a five-year worldwide disqualification in 2007 after stewards prosecuted him for receiving a parcel containing darbepoetin alfa. Investigator Phil O’Reilly intercepted Hall at the Serpentine post office and confiscated a package containing eight phials of EPO.

In 2009, then WA chief steward John Zucal told The West Australian that 1100 horses had been tested for EPO in the state over the preceding 12 months, all negative.

Harness racing produced its own case that year when Victorian trainer Alan Donohoe received a six-year ban for administering a form of EPO to five horses.

Victorian harness trainer Jeremy Quinlan also faced three offences involving darbepoetin alfa, arising from one out-of-competition sample and two post-race samples, according to the tribunal’s determination in Carrison’s appeal. Quinlan’s concurrent six-year disqualifications were reduced on appeal to concurrent four-year terms.

New Zealand’s first EPO discovery came in 2013, when a syringe of a different product, NeoRecormon, was handed over during an inspection of an Ashburton stable.

Racing Integrity Unit general manager Mike Godber told the New Zealand Herald that EPO could be detectable in blood and urine for only a few days, while its effects could last considerably longer.

The best-documented darbepoetin positives overseas come from North American harness racing.

In 2008 the Ontario Racing Commission confirmed findings in Reason To Celebrate and Dr Sharkey, trained by Daniel McFadden. Investigators had been tipped off about Aranesp prescriptions filled at a Windsor-area pharmacy, and the commission proposed ten-year suspensions and a $40,000 fine.

In 2015 Indiana trainer Bradley Moffitt accepted a ten-year suspension over a darbepoetin positive from a Hoosier Park race.

The New Jersey Racing Commission warned in 2005 that the drugs can dangerously thicken a horse’s blood during exercise. It also warned that antibodies to the human protein can attack the horse’s own erythropoietin, leading to severe anaemia and death.

Announcing the McFadden suspensions, the Ontario Racing Commission said:

“EPO/DPO has no legitimate use for a horse that is racing. It not only places the horse at risk, it imperils the future of the horse racing industry.”