And this from the USA
Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, said that Cobalt
is definitely a drug that can be used as a
performance-enhancer.
"People believe is that it causes the bone marrow to
stimulate more blood cells. It's not unlike EPO," she said.
Gural said he first became aware of Cobalt when hearing
rumors that a trainer with a long list of violations on his
record was offering to sell it to people. No racing state was
testing for the drug, so Gural took samples collected by his
investigator Brice Cote and sent them to a lab in Hong Kong,
where the excessive Cobalt levels showed up. Yet, he
doesn't believe he has solved the problem.
"The real problem is that this is a drug that disappears
from the system very quickly," he said. "That makes it hard
for us to pick it up. My guess is that with the two really bad
cases where the trainers were banned their horse probably
got this stuff a half an hour before we tested the horses. We
were probably lucky to catch them."