February 13, 2004

George Maylin wins HTA's Messenger Award

Dr. George A. Maylin of Cornell University, one of the world’s leading researchers in equine drug testing and veterinary toxicology, is the 2004 winner of Harness Tracks of America’ Messenger Award, the highest honor bestowed by the association of 36 major harness racing organizations in the United States and Canada.

Dr. Maylin, an associate professor of toxicology at Cornell, is co-director of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s Super Drug Testing Laboratory; director of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board Drug Testing and Research program; director of laboratory testing for thoroughbred racing’s Graded Stakes Committee, and a member of the Association of Racing Commissioners International Drug Testing and Quality Assurance Program committee and the New York State Medication Program. He also is a consultant to the American Horse Shows/USA Equestrian association.

For 33 years Dr. Maylin has been a national and international leader in the fields of equine pharmacology, toxicology, exercise physiology, chemistry and immunochemistry, and last year, working with Dr. Ken McKeever of Rutgers University in New Jersey, he developed an antibody-antigen reaction test for erythropoietin, or EPO, an illegal substance that has troubled horse racing, harness and thoroughbred, in recent years.

Author of some 70 scientific papers in his field, Maylin is widely regarded as a world leader in the field of drug detection and illegal medication. He obtained his doctor of veterinary medicine degree from the University of Guelph in Ontario in 1965 and master of science and PhD degrees from Cornell in 1968 and 1971, and has conducted equine research, specializing in toxicology and drug detection, since that time.

HTA’s Messenger award is named for the English thoroughbred stallion whose importation to America in 1788 laid the foundation for today’s Standardbred trotting and pacing horse.

It is awarded annually to an individual or organization for exceptionally outstanding and meritorious service to racing. Patterned after England’s Gimcrack award, it is presented by HTA’s longtime executive vice president Stan Bergstein, whose name it also carries, and calls for a brief "state of the sport" message from the recipient. Bergstein said Maylin’s long and dedicated work on illegal medications makes him a most appropriate recipient of the award.