Before Continuing

"On November 1, 1945, one of Smith's horses, a claimer named Magnific Duel, was being prepared for a New York race when a Jockey Club official saw a groom spraying something up the horse's nostril. The atomizer he took from the stall contained 2.6 percent ephedrine, a decongestant. Smith was in deep trouble. New York did not allow any medications in racing horses. Though Smith was not present when the incident occurred and there was no evidence that he knew what his groom was doing, by racing law he was responsible for anything his employee did. The Jockey Club suspended him immediately, pending a hearing. Smith was aghast. "I am absolutely innocent", he said................In an extremely controversial decision, Smith was banned from racing for one year."

Tom Smith was the trainer of Seabiscuit. Before continuing I need to discuss what I know about ephedrine, which is quite a lot. Begin, with due regard to author Hillenbrand who wrote the above words on page 318 of "Seabcuit", ephedrine, or ephedra as its commonly known, is anything but a "decongestant" as Hillenbrand claims.

In the year 2003 I was as usual fighting weight trying to get down to 150 lbs so I could breeze my horses racing at Eureka. In the course of things and through our building security guard, a body builder named Garrett, I came across the drink pictured below left called Speed Stack.

You'll notice the ABB on the label. That stands for "American Body Building", the manufacturer. If you're thinking maybe speed, meth, some concoction of amphetamines you'd be dead wrong. "Stack" is the body building term for stacking ingredients to obtain an effect, and speed is an artistic name of getting reved up for a workout.

In fact Speed Stack these days consists of "a stack" of three mild caffeines. gurana extract, yerba mate and metabromine cocoa extract combined with weight loss supplement "bitter orange" or "citrus arantium". Speed Stack is a terrific drink. It will make your day.

But, back in 2003 Speed Stack instead of bitter orange contained ephedra before it was banned. I started drinking the ephedra Speed Stack and just loved it. Per Mike Piazza, former Allstar catcher then with the NY Mets when he was asked his feelings about banning ephedra, "I think it's kind of neat". And that was precisely my experience. Unknown whether the ephedra drink raises your IQ, but, it surely seems so. Imbibe on bottle of ABB Speed Stack and you're focused, sharp and in a superb mood. Additionally, the Speed Stack ephedra was a decent appetite suppressant which did help distract you from food.

But, that's only part of the story on ephedra. By chance I drank a bottle of Speed Stack once before a nightly run, and I still remember it. It was dark, partly cloudy, and I started my usual slow warm up jog. But this night I felt an immediate sense of unusual power and physical sharpness, and I just took off, full speed all of the normal aches and pains of the 57 year old body forgotten.

I have lots of thoughts about ephedra, but the relevant ones here seem to be that ephedra causes physical changes. It speeds up heart rate, increases blood pressure, and attaches itself temporarily to receptors in the heart muscle and nervous system. In addition to producing feelings of well being and alertness it increases power and stamina particularly over short distances. I'll conclude this one by noting that after taking ephedra supplements through Speed Stack for a whole year before it was banned I am without any doubt that ephedra is a significant performance enhancer. I'll tie this in with Tom Smith and Seabiscuit, next post.